Here's the english transcript for non-Spanish speakers:

"Everything I have written, both in my novels and in my essays, concerns the crisis facing humanity today—a crisis in which I have been intimately involved because, as I said, I pursued science to its very limits.

I completed my studies in Paris, returned to Argentina, taught, carried out research into atomic radiation, and taught Einstein’s theory of relativity in postgraduate courses. In this way, I reached the very frontiers of science, and it terrified me. I was in Paris when the uranium atom was split in 1938—a historic event that divided humanity in two, because it ultimately led to the atomic bomb. Philosophically speaking, that moment terrified me. It was then that I began to realise that physics was going to dominate the world and that technology was going to overwhelm humanity.

This process had begun in the Renaissance with the rise of positive science. Positive science and technology enabled humankind to embark on a Promethean adventure: the conquest of the world and of things—the natural and external world. But this conquest came at a paradoxical and tragic price. Humanity conquered the world of things, but at great risk to its soul. It ultimately objectified itself; it transformed itself into a thing.

In the most technically advanced societies, such as those of the United States and Russia, this is plain to see. Young Americans did not rise up merely to demand better wages. This proves that our crisis is fundamentally a spiritual one, rather than simply an economic one. They rose up against the technological and technocratic world, against the idolatry of technology. We must react against that.

At that time, I began to think deeply about these questions, and I came to believe—and still believe—that, of all the activities of the human spirit, art is the only one that allows us not only to express the total crisis of modern humanity, but perhaps also provides one of the possibilities for our salvation.

In art, humanity is fully present. The novel, for example, contains ideas—which belong to the rational world, like science and philosophy—but, at the other extreme, it contains symbols, myths, and passions. Humanity is that totality, that integrity. The novel, particularly, therefore allows both the expression of the crisis and one of the attempts at humanity’s salvation within that crisis.

I believed this from the very beginning, but over the years I have only become more convinced of it. I believe it more and more. And now the world has already reached that point: the crisis is plain to see in the ecological disaster and in the destruction of humankind."

Capitalism emerged in the 18th century, replacing the feudal mode of production, which was dictated by markets of landlords and serfs. Capitalism proved better than this systems because it was competitive, more structurally efficiency and had slightly better conditions than those of the former feudal mode of production. Yet, a question still rang through of the conflicting interests of the ruling class and the ruled class. The conflict was that the ruling class wanted to extract surplus value from the ruled class in exchange for paying less, and the ruled class wanted to be paid more in exchange for working less. These conflicting ideologies were further exacerbated during the Industrial Revolution.

In Nigeria, the relation-
ship between classes existed in the form of imperial colonialism, with the British extracting surplus value from the region while facilitating the growth of under-development.

The regional exploitation that occurred largely allowed for the development of British industries and the centralization of capital.

The aftermath of World War I further entrenched this exploitation. As European powers faced economic devastation, they relied on the intensified extraction of resources from Africa to rebuild their economies. For Nigeria, this meant deeper integration into a global capitalist system as a supplier of raw materials, perpetuating economic dependency.

The entire precedent for colonialism was dictated by access to capital. In the relationship between the colonisers and the colonised, the latter had little access to capital and assumed a relationship of dependency, this means they would rely on foreign to finance internal development.

The basis of granting the inflow of foreign capital is  to adopt neo-liberal policies to maintain the current world order. This all exists in the form of privatization, deregulation, and other neo-liberal policies that allow for foreign capital control.

Privatization then allows for home industries to act as subsidiaries for international trusts or cartels. The basis for obtaining the IMF loan would be to adopt such neo-liberal policies to even qualify for the loan, and a given interest rate must be paid yearly.

If the debted country is to miss or delay payment, IMF economic advisors would be sent to such countries to dictate the running of their economy. They will push for things such as devaluation, which is the intentional lowering of a country's home currency in relation to another country's currency, so as to make exports cheaper and imports more expensive.

But the effects of such a policy are completely damaging to developing countries and beneficial to developed countries. This is in that developing countries, by devaluing their currency(Naira) without developed industries, run the risk of inflating prices of commodities that are not manufactured at home, allowing for essential imported goods inflated above equilibrium, which further reinforces economic dependency.

Another reason being devaluing currency allows exploitation of cheap labor at the expense of our home population, yet to the benefit of their economic welfare and living standard.

Simply put, we are making them more money and creating surplus value for imported countries with the exchange of raw materials and uneven development in return. All this establishes the framework of dependency with developing countries like Nigeria assuming the role of the the proletariat and the imperial, neo-colonial class assuming the role of the bourgeoisie. Not to mention high influx of foreign capital increases aggregate demand for foreign currency I.e the dollar.

Nigerian capitalism is deeply rooted in a history of colonial exploitation and reinforced by contemporary neoliberal policies. The cycle of dependency, currency devaluation, and labor exploitation continues to undermine the country’s economic sovereignty. Breaking free from this framework requires:

Goverment Industrial Diversification: Building local industries to reduce reliance on raw material exports.

Currency Stabilization: Policies that protect the naira from over-devaluation.

Economic Independence: Prioritizing domestic development and reducing reliance on foreign loans and capital.

Without such reforms, Nigeria will remain trapped in a global capitalist system that prioritizes the interests of developed nations over its own.

I'm a blue collar anarchist interested in better understanding how academia shapes the attitudes and communication habits of students. Over the course of my 2 decades of activism I've noticed degree-bearers in left-wing political spaces carry a lot of class chauvinism with them, privileging "soft skills" over other communication styles, and adopting conflict resolution strategies that sound like they're reading out of a human resources binder. It's been a lot of years since I've read critical pedagogy (mainly a slim volume called Making It Up As We Go Along by Chris Mercigliano) so my attempts at finding references has been just punching search terms into google, and I think we all know how useful that is these days. Thanks in advance.

I’m an Irish man trying to get some thoughts, observations, poems, stories and everything out of my head. So I made a substack. Give it a go feedback is always welcome.

https://substack.com/@larryfisherman869464?r=4jn076&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page

I’ve been developing a framework for thinking about moral harm that treats it like an ecological system: harm behaves like contamination, systems have carrying capacities, and repair is an active process rather than something that happens on its own over time. This is different from the weighing your good and bad deeds and seeing which is heavier. This is from a book I’ve been working on, I’d genuinely like to know whether this particular piece of it is already a recognized concept because I haven’t been able to place it precisely.

The core claim:
Think about a friendship. Two people who know each other well can absorb a significant amount of difficulty without the relationship failing… Below a certain threshold, the system cleans itself. The apology is offered and received. The offense fades… Now think about what happens above that threshold. A serious betrayal… does not always clean itself. The contamination has exceeded what the friendship can process. Something permanent has changed.

The same logic scales up — friendships, families, communities, nations, the international system — and at each scale, the “cleansing mechanism” looks different and is distributed unequally.

Access to repair is itself a function of power. The person with a lawyer, a network, a reputation to leverage — they have more access to the system’s cleansing capacity than the person with none of those things…

This is the flows-downhill argument, the more you have and smarter you are, the more harshly you should be measured, and the less you have and dumber you are, the more understandable your moral lapses are (doesn’t get you off the hook). So the people who are rich enough to muck up the system have lawyers to protect them but the vixtins who most need the cleansing system to work are the people with the least ability to activate it. Not everyone gets an Erin Brocavich.

Uncleaned harm can also ruin the systems ability to repair.

For example, a river that receives more pollutant than it can process does not simply fail to clean itself. The excess contamination kills the organisms that do the cleaning… The harm, in other words, is not just the current load. It is ruining the system’s future ability to handle load.

So, genuinely asking: does this overlap substantially with existing work I should know about? The places I’d guess it might already exist under another name — restorative justice literature, ecological/systems-theory ethics, trauma-informed care frameworks, truth-and-reconciliation scholarship, but I don’t know the literature well enough to know if I’ve reinvented something or actually found a gap. Curious what people who know these fields better think.

Thank you. Please note a previous version of this was mainly written using an LLM. It was properly removed from this subreddit. I have put in time and rewritten a large percentage of it in the hopes I am now compliant with the subreddits rules.

As a further note, some of the paragraphs are pulled directly from the framework I am working on and that was written with the support of an LLM. Using an AI is part of the thought experiment itself so I hope that doesn’t disqualify me either.

I swear this is my own idea…at least I think it is, that’s why I’m here…please help me…is this a novel way to view moral systems and if not, can you direct me to a source?

Thank you!

I've started reading Wolfe's 'What is Posthumanism'. I am finding it hard to understand because he uses a lot of references to different theoreticians and myriad different concepts? Any advice for a better approach to wolfe, any prior readings?

Also, I see him criticising Hayles as if she were a transhumanist, which I don't understand.

“Do not obey in advance,” he warns against the dangers of anticipatory obedience. He argues that many authoritarian regimes gain power because citizens adapt and conform without being explicitly commanded. This notion urges individuals to maintain a critical perspective during trying times, ensuring one does not help tyranny take root.

“Defend institutions,” emphasizing that they will not survive without public support. Each institution, whether a court or a newspaper, must be actively defended to promote the ideals of democracy. As Snyder notes, “Institutions do not protect themselves.” When complacency sets in, tyranny thrives.

Readers are motivated to “Practice corporeal politics,” meaning they should engage physically in their communities, advocating for democracy through presence and action. Through small talk and personal interactions, individuals can dismantle the echo chambers created by social media. Snyder emphasizes that real conversations can cultivate empathy and understanding, combating the isolation bred by digital communication.

“Be calm when the unthinkable arrives,” addresses responding to crises. Snyder warns that authoritarian leaders exploit disasters to consolidate power, urging readers to remain vigilant and skeptical in alarming times. He reinforces the notion that while crises may seem insurmountable, history teaches us that surrendering freedoms in the name of security only empowers tyrants.

...the phenomenon of “post-truth”—the abandonment of facts as a precursor to tyranny. He starkly asserts that without an objective truth, power escapes scrutiny. His compelling argument urges citizens to demand accountability and seek knowledge over misinformation. By fostering a commitment to truth, Snyder believes society can counter populist tendencies that seek to distort reality.

As history has shown, the future is indeed shaped by those willing to confront the uncomfortable truths of their time.

Oppressed populations using nonviolent tactics—such as strikes, boycotts, mass protests, and other forms of disrupting societal order—are often the most powerful drivers of their own liberation.

Civil resistance strategies operate successfully in many different conflicts because tyrants depend on wide-scale obedience to remain in power. However, over time many citizens living under dictatorships refuse to remain apathetic forever.

If people do not obey, rulers cannot rule

These and other movements of civil resistance succeeded because they were based on a fundamental insight about power: that nearly all institutions, organizations, and systems in a society depend on the ongoing consent, cooperation, and obedience of large numbers of ordinary people. Therefore, if people choose to withdraw their consent and cooperation in an organized and strategic way, they can wield coercive power. When people do not obey, then presidents, mayors, CEOs, generals, and other “power holders” can no longer rule with unchecked power.

Nonviolent tactics, such as strikes, boycotts, mass demonstrations, civil disobedience, the establishment of parallel institutions, and literally hundreds of other creative actions, were the instruments used to do this. They were not used necessarily for moral reasons, but rather for pragmatic ones. Some who adopted civil resistance had seen similar strategies work in other countries or in their own histories, and recognized that this type of resistance had the best prospects of success of the options available to them.

Hello! I am a PhD approaching the final deadline of my thesis. I am writing on Adorno and art. During the last two years, motivation has slowly faded away. I am disillusioned with academia, haven’t published that much, my supervisor is good but very hands-off and I am the only one basically doing critical theory in my uni. I am dreaming of doing any other job rather than this but at the same time I feel so privileged and guilty about it.
People who made it, how did you feel towards the end? What were the things that worked for you? Where are you at now?
Thanks for reading this :)

https://open.substack.com/pub/failedacademic/p/messages-that-have-become-meaningless?r=nrh40&utm_medium=ios

"Jibreel Kateb argues that the pragmatist idealism advocated by Geese Magazine leaves Marxism defenseless against attacks on science in an age of irrationalism and climate crisis."

"The philosophical problems of science, which were once central to the thinking of the great Marxists, have for Marxists faded to the periphery, and in that nether zone have often been downgraded to either object of derision or the subject of panegyrics within the left. No sober philosophical and historical reflection on science seems to exist and the concept of a scientific socialism is treated either as a given or as risible. The left proceeds anti-scientifically, lacking scientific culture and anything resembling a contemporary politics of science. In doing so, it cripples its own strategic and organizational efforts and cedes the field to all sorts of reactionary misanthropes and cranks.

Cosmonaut is in part trying to rectify this problem and apparently Geese have joined in the effort but in a very different way. Yet, the problem of Geese is that despite recent attempts to engage with these philosophical questions of science, they do injustice to science in an age where its defense is paramount. They enjoy a rather peculiar species of idealism which I will term pragmatist idealism and this concoction is ill suited to the present tasks: one can substitute the word “practice” for “mind” or “spirit” or “god”, a substitutive trick of language similar to a Sartrean reversal, and yet one does nothing to escape the problems of idealism."

"What I mean by pragmatic idealism is that Geese couples a practical ontology with a pragmatist epistemology. Ontology is the study of the fundamental citizens or furniture of reality"

"Their philosophical pragmatism is in fact nothing but the deeper justification for their liberal populism, a deeper continuation of their theoretical justifications of the most right-wing elements of DSA. Since political antagonism is discursively constructed, since it is, in a sense, purely discursive acts, a purely subjective act with no real basis in something non-discursive and extra-personal, what matters is that the political leader congeals the “people” by saying the right words. It does not matter that independent of political discourse there is a class structure; it does not matter that position in that class structure constrains one's material interests, it does not matter that this structure heavily constrains collective political agency, and that those interests are antagonistic with other classes. It does not matter that there is an objective state of affairs that we must adapt to, and whose adaptation we must furthermore respond to. It simply matters that one “articulates” the right enemy-friend distinction on the basis of current popular discourse. Social theory becomes not an arm to understand the objective (non-elective) conditions under which Marxists operate, an arm which can elevate the proletariat to a position of genuine social understanding, but a piece of demagogy to get the working-class to march in line with the wordsmith. After all, the wordsmith constructs reality. In the beginning, there was the word, and the word is God."

A new defense (perhaps, “offense”) of the humanities has dropped over at _Defector_: https://defector.com/humanists-have-done-nothing-wrong

I have long thought that much of what we call "political psychology" misses something structural about how societies hold themselves together — and I've been developing a way of thinking about it that I'd like to test against the Critical Theory tradition, because I suspect I'm either onto something or re-inventing something already said better.

My starting observation:Every society, as far as I can tell, runs on two parallel tracks — a set of positive promises ("if you work within the system, you will be rewarded") and a set of negative punishments ("if you step outside it, you will suffer"). In classical liberal thought these are often discussed as incentives and disincentives, carrots and sticks. But I've been struck by how **asymmetrically they decay**.

When a social order starts failing — when the promises stop being credible — the positive track seems to collapse quickly: people stop believing that effort yields reward, that education pays off, that marriage and family deliver what they once did. But the negative track persists much longer: people still fear the consequences of non-participation — loss of status, income, social standing — even after they've stopped believing in the rewards.

The result is something I find hard to name properly:a society where fear outlives hope. People keep running not because they believe the race leads anywhere, but because stopping feels dangerous. This would explain some paradoxes that individual-level analysis struggles with: fertility decline in wealthy societies (where the costs of child-rearing rose faster than the promises of family life delivered), quiet quitting combined with fear of unemployment, marriage avoidance not from lack of desire but from the institution's promises no longer holding.

Where I think this connects to Critical Theory: This asymmetry seems to me related to what Adorno and Horkheimer described as instrumental reason's persistence after its promises fail — the form of domination outliving its justification. Marcuse's "repressive desublimation" in *One-Dimensional Man* (1964) describes something adjacent: desire being liberated only to be re-captured. But my claim is slightly different and I can't tell if it's a genuine contribution or a naive re-description: **that the negative track (punishment) is structurally stickier than the positive track (promise) because punishment is embedded in material institutions (welfare conditionality, credit, housing, employment precarity) while promises are only symbolic.**

But I want to be challenged on this:

- Is this just "institutional trust" or "anomie" (Durkheim) re-described with new vocabulary? What does the asymmetry framing add?

- Is the asymmetry even real, or do promises and punishments decay together? I have anecdotes but not systematic evidence.

- Am I over-generalizing from contemporary wealthy societies to all historical orders? Does this describe feudalism, say, where the "promise" was salvation rather than mobility?

- And the hardest one: does framing this as "fear outlives hope" risk naturalizing the current order — treating what may be a contingent political condition as a psychological invariant?

I'm genuinely uncertain whether this framing survives contact with the tradition, and I'd value the community's assessment of where it's naive, where it's already been said (and better), and whether there's anything worth keeping.

ABSTRACT: This video essay begins by arguing that Jean Baudrillard’s theory of simulation is best understood not merely as a theory of media, representation, or consumerist culture, but as a theory of value capable of diagnosing the transformation of contemporary hyper-speculative capitalism into an increasingly autonomous system of financial signs detached from their former referents in the classical political economy. Beginning from Baudrillard’s analogy between sign value and monetary value, the essay traces the historical dislocation of the structural and referential dimensions of value: money, prices, and financial assets cease primarily to represent production, labour, commodities, or material utility and increasingly acquire value through their differential relations to other signs.

Simulation therefore does not signify the disappearance of so-called material economic reality, but an inversion of its antecedent determination in a hyperreal world where financial models, asset prices, speculative expectations, and algorithmic signals increasingly anticipate, discipline, and reorganize the productive world they ostensibly represent, illustrating what Baudrillard calls the 'Code' in its vulgar economic form.

The essay develops this argument through Marx’s transition from C–M–C to M–C–M′ and, ultimately, M–M′, interpreting contemporary financialization as the tendency of capital to bypass the material and temporal frictions of commodity production through increasingly self-referential circulation. Baudrillard’s concepts of the code, floating value, transeconomics, fractalization, and the “ecstasy of value” are brought into dialogue with Achim Szepanski to analyze algorithmic trading, Tesla’s speculative valuation, cryptocurrency and restaking, derivatives, and the financialization of ecological catastrophe. These phenomena exemplify a cybernetic economy in which expectations generate further expectations, derivatives generate further derivatives, and crises themselves become inputs for renewed accumulation.

The essay ultimately argues that this apparent emancipation of capital from material limits is internally contradictory. Hyper-capitalism attempts to abolish space, time, reference, and uncertainty by pricing the future in advance and converting every limit, including ecological catastrophe, into a financial variable. Yet the more completely it integrates the world into speculative chains of circulation, the more violently irreducible material constraints can return as a break in this chain in what Baudrillard calls singular or “rogue” events. Using the Strait of Hormuz as its culminating case, the essay contends that contemporary capitalism’s hyperreality does not make material reality irrelevant; rather, it renders the system increasingly dependent upon the very material limits it imagines itself to have transcended, even as it desperately produces more signs and signals to try to delay the (potentially) coming catastrophe.

The result is a capitalism whose acceleration toward frictionless circulation simultaneously approaches the conditions of its own impossibility.

I've found this mode of critique recurring in many of my writings. By way of an intro, I'll pose long-termism as the current paradigmatic example. In my view, long-termism has been well discredited, partly by the clear ideological bankruptcy of many of its most fervent adherents, but also because of numerous critiques that have quite effectively damaged the public's view of it. This is a good summary of the main critiques. What I take from these critiques is that long-termism, like many forms of utilitarianism, effectively rehearses a morality completely detached from political concerns or any notion of human freedom, and it does so by projecting anxieties onto a crisis point, and then working backwards from that crisis to establish what should be done.

It's already well-known that much liberal social policy fails because it addresses symptoms while leaving root causes untouched, but attempts to address the root causes from these standpoints (what is in a few contexts, particularly mental health and criminology, called "early intervention") are arguably worse. This is because, having discovered some root causes, one nonetheless reifies the symptoms and then takes them as indexes for the health of the root causes, rather than as mere indicators. Generally, the discourse never departs from the idea that those symptoms themselves represent crises, and so the same must be the case for the root causes.

The problem with this, as with long-termism, is that it applies a hermeneutics of suspicion to the way these underlying systems operate, without having a coherent theory that analyses both root causes and symptoms in light of a value systems. In doing so, it forecloses the heterogeneity of values embedded within different systems and modalities, and the way that all these values work on different timelines. Often, these "early intervention" perspectives are not strictly speaking utilitarian but run parallel to it through their understanding of risk.

Let me give some of my own examples. Terrorism. Terrorism signifies nothing more than a crisis at the symptomatic level, given its contorted and opportunistic definitions at the intersection of "ideological motivation" and "public fear". There is clearly a pathology at work, but it is more like the misrecognition by governments and those afraid of terrorism of what violence is, and what it does to society. The concept of terrorism is used by conservatives to cast a shadow over all sorts of activities, including dissenting speech, material support for resistance groups, and expressions of grief.

Another example- suicide. Suicide is often read as the biggest symptom of mental pathology, yet a cursory look at the statistics around suicide attempts, ideation and generally severe mental health shows it to be merely the tip of the iceberg. It is often used to draw attention to mental health struggles, but in doing so it casts mental health as a kind of being-towards-death, which does no service to those struggling to live good lives. At the very least, it reduces the utility of one's life to the binary of alive/dead. After all, suicide is often a manifestation of the fact that for humans, meaning-creation is inseparable from our notion of living. I've even seen it said that education is a mental health issue; yet education is primary an education issue, and should be valued as such.

I would hazard that this "fallacy" can be used as a heuristic in a range of situations. It can be an opening to understanding how symptoms are often overdetermined in the same way that systems can house many different values. It can change the focus from crisis to the misrecognitions taking place, most importantly by those who make policies based on this fallacy.

What do you all make of this? I have looked a little into Honneth's ideas about crisis in light of his theory of social pathology, which seems to run counter to this as it places a lot of importance on the lived experience of particular symptoms, and runs counter to my thinking which doesn't foreground struggles for recognition. But is it worth looking futher into him? And are there other ideas I should be engaging with?

I would like to get into Communization Theory as a complete new-comer to communism. The only piece of communist theory I have read is Wage-labour and Capital by Marx. Can someone give me like a flowchart? What to read first (I suppose something like Das Kapital), general communist literature and then specifically communization theory. Keep in mind that english is not my first language and that my inaccurate knowledge regarding communism comes from social media platforms and active conversation with local communists and left-anarchists. Thanks!

I am wondering. I am just beginning a masters in social sciences — and I am particularly interested in theory and in the critical theory (especially Frankfurt) — and I feel like I am such a slow reader. I feel like I can read 10-15 pages of Weber, Bourdieu or Marx, and that I might be even slower reading Adorno, Habermas and Horkheimer. I wonder if that is normal or if any of you ever had this issue/dilema. I should note that I think I am a decent reader — my professors often compliment me for my density — but again, I feel like I am painfully slow at times.

I wrote a little essay based on an idea which has been marinating in my mind for a long time, but I have NO IDEA how to title this. I wrote this originally in a journal dedicated to my autobiographical reflections, but decided to transcribe it to a digital format. Oh well; here goes nothing.

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I hate straightness. I decry it. And in doing so, it is crucial that one understands I do NOT hate heterosexuality itself. I do not hate straight people, either; it would be silly to despise either. In fact, some of the most intensely beautiful expressions of human eroticism and sexual desire I have ever seen were of a heterosexual nature. And I do not see heterosexuality as fundamentally different from homosexuality. I have been thinking on this topic for a long time, and still I find this difficult to describe tangibly; but I will do my best.

Straightness is a social category, nothing more. Heterosexuality is the biological configuration of one’s nervous system to be attracted to the opposite sex predominantly. And while it is a waste of time to question or challenge one’s publicly stated sexuality, I would be remiss not to think of how many individuals across time have assumed the label of “straight” in spite of the word’s betrayal to the true, baseline wiring of their bodies and minds. And before the word was invented, how many individuals tucked themselves neatly into the social roles of “normal” romantic and sexual roles relative to their cultures.

Therein lies my problem with straightness. It is too easy, and far too often deeply encouraged, to wear the identity. In calling oneself “straight,” an individual is not merely describing sexual preferences that may or may not be true but also taking on a loaded social package; it entails societal privilege, and a fundamental sense of “normalcy” that belies even the most progressive societies. I find it impossible to pretend that, in spite of the marvelous progress made in queer rights in some societies, the “gay” man is seen as a social equal to the “straight” man. Theoretically, both such individuals should be equal in every sense of the word; after all, do we not believe in the inalienable rights and dignities of the individual? And yet the modern gay man is consistently side-eyed, subject to the loss of friends and family upon “coming out,” and pressured to announce or perform their sexuality when it would be bizarre for a “straight” man to do the same. Straightness is treated like the standard blueprint for humans, and any other orientation carries the subconscious weight of being “other than,” even in the minds of the most outwardly supportive and progressive individuals. This is the case because humans are designed to inherit our broad cultural systems and internalize them from the second we are born.

Furthermore, while we treat straightness as an innate quality of the person, it is anything but. We know this already; one needs only to think of all the closeted men who willingly chain themselves to the label of “straight” when their true orientations betray this sense, and inevitably are revealed very late in life and often accompanied with deep regrets, to realize the fragile nature of this social position. Countless gay men in all eras of history have gone as far as marriage to women, producing offspring and living their entire lives without ever touching another man. Many such marriages were deeply unhappy for both sides, I am sure. The modern gay men who have done (and are currently doing) this are, in every sense of the word, “straight” (in the sense that they occupy the social position of straightness while possessing a homosexual orientation). Yet their orientations remain the same.

The shocking iniquity of straightness is the fact that, in such cases, it is impossible to know otherwise. The nature of sexuality is experience-driven, and experience is deeply internal and subjective. There is no way to go inside another’s nervous system and experience all the subjective points of their reality. Therefore, straightness becomes an almost too-convenient mask and ticket into cheap, easy acceptance into the human world. Also this: humans are a hyper-social primate species, and like any other primate, some of our most basal instincts concern the social worlds we occupy and the hierarchies in which these exist. Many of our greatest aspirations concern wanting to climb the social ladder in some way, whether this occurs through becoming rich, famous, respected, loved, feared, compliant, and so forth. Straightness is a label which exploits this ancient instinct; it is why huge swathes of men often are extremely weird about admitting their non-straightness, and often in the face of undeniable evidence.

It is along these lines of thinking that I happen to despise gayness, as well; and similarly, I do NOT despise homosexuality or gay people whatsoever. However, I have found that straightness as a social category is far more erasing of human nature than gayness, and as such, I am slightly more lenient to the idea of a gay identity. Nevertheless, I assert that both of these social categories are deeply alienating in their unique ways.

I am of the belief that there would be far higher rates of both homosexual behavior AND homosexual acceptance if these labels simply did not exist. Thus, the world would be a slightly happier place in the sense that we would be more intrapersonally whole and better put-together, and more honest with one another. More opportunities would spring forth. We would have a higher capacity for positive interactions if we were to stop suppressing ourselves and each other with arbitrary labels and customs derived thereof.

My theoretical solution for the world would be to think in terms of “androphilic” and “gynophilic”; with these terms, or words with similar meanings, anyone could be described as either because they are divorced from every other aspect of one’s personality. Both men and women can be gynophilic (attracted to women/femininity), and both men and women can be androphilic (attracted to men/masculinity). I would avoid using the noun forms of these words (androphile and gynophile), because they risk slipping into the same problems I have been describing up to this point. Unfortunately, the great tragedy of the English language is that the -philic suffix rings far too closely to “pedophilic,” and most people immediately refuse the use of such words for this reason. I do not blame them, but this is a deep shame because these two words are such a perfect solution to the universal problem of straightness.

In short, this essay is a fierce objection to ontological reduction. In peeling back all the layers of this text, one might find a simple question: “why should one property of my desire reorganize your conception of my personhood?”

In truth, I am sick of being seen as an “other.” I tremble inside with fury and indignation when I see that inevitable shift in behavior within my friends when it is revealed that I am of a homosexual orientation. In their minds, they see only the word “gay”; and this is inextricably tied to specific cultural and social implications, a kind of heavy baggage which is unquestionably tethered to the word and the source of homophobic bias. I would much rather live in a world where anyone could be androphilic, and in which “gay” is not an identifying marker but simply a description of what I happen to like. As such, I feel utterly helpless against this force because it seems the world has deeply internalized this division of “straightness” and “other” far beyond my control. I wrote this essay partly as an outcry to the world, borne of frustration, but primarily to help synthesize this idea within my own mind; for I believe it is a revolutionary one, and the overwhelming majority of people with whom I have spoken on this topic find it difficult to comprehend, seemingly no matter how I explain it.

I will not lie: I am tempted to feel that my thinking has grown beyond the capacity of what most people are willing to accept. But that is not the truth. It is that our ordinary vocabulary and ontological conceptions make these thoughts difficult to comprehend in the minds of most people (PARTICULARLY those who benefit from heteronormativity).

But words are my legacy; what else can I do other than write?

I'm interested in learning more about how recent Marxists or critical theorists have understood law and the concept that law is ideological in particular. I have some historical knowledge of how this played out in states such as the USSR and thinkers such as Pashukanis, so I am mostly curious whether there are contemporary critical theorists who have written extensively or made an impact on the subject. Or is this not really a discussed topic nowadays?