Sexuality and Globalization: An Introduction to a Phenomenology of Sexualities

An Introduction to a Phenomenology of Sexualities

L. Bibard, Kenneth A. Loparo, Kenneth A. Loparo, Christopher Edwards

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781349501779, 9781137475251
• eBook ISBN: 9781137469298
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The book argues that a universally widespread virility currently prevents humans from realizing their sexualities, which are originally the feminine and the masculine. This obstacle may be traced back to Renaissance humanism, whose core intention is to take control over the so-called 'nature."

Part I

Modernity

1

Appraisal

Abstract: This chapter makes clear some dominant aspects of current economic life and its social as well as psychological consequences: people participate in and benefit from, but at the same time are victims of, the current worldwide economy, which results in people lacking time. People lack time for everything. Particularly due to the exceptionally competitive economy, they are scared about the future. The question must be asked: why are people so deeply embedded in a global and dominant economy, without being able to get rid of its constraints and increasing looming dangers? This is to be answered in Chapter 2.

Keywords: dependency; economy; fear; global world

Bibard, Laurent. Sexuality and Globalization: An Introduction to a Phenomenology of Sexualities. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. DOI: 10.1057/9781137469298.0006.

One identifiable constant of the world in which we live is the significance of the economy as a theoretical model, as a daily reality, as well as an authority imposing limits on people’s personal and professional choices. The economy’s stranglehold on the latter is engendered by the dominance of economic thought in political reasoning: there is a direct relationship between the power and influence of the State and the economic power that the latter is able to harness. An economy’s strength is measured by its means: money. Be it by free will or by obligation, we all find ourselves faced with the choice of earning a living or, on an individual or national level, leading a marginalized existence. Money is not, however, the only means of an economic system. Making it ever more powerful are the technical advances that we continually make by mobilizing our collective imagination and knowledge. The sciences acquiesce to our ever-growing desire for knowledge and industrial capability. In fact, the only archaic aspect of our naming of the “military-industrial complex” as a coupling of war and money is its differentiation amongst other systems assumed to fall outside of its scope: the military-industrial complex defines the global economy in which we live, a world where everything is sooner or later either war-driven or strategic, economic or commercial, social albeit financial, and scientific or technological. The modern supremacy of the economy over other ways of living (religious, moral, political, philosophical, artistic, leisurely) boils down to the increasingly predictable struggle of man versus man in which each actor leverages his mastery of technical and /or financial prowess to his or his community’s advantage.

Preparing oneself for life is thus tantamount to arming oneself for battle: understanding the world, contemplating its potential beauty, and being happy are no longer sufficiently convincing nor attainable objectives. Education is synonymous with amassing the knowledge requisite to finding one’s place in an increasingly tumultuous world. Studying for the sake of intellectual prestige and knowledge or for the simple pleasure of doing so is no longer in vogue. Subsistence trumps the rest and because life is a game of survival of the fittest, having the means to do so is essential no matter the cost. The modern learner will only see the value of learning theory insofar as doing so will prepare him for an economic struggle that consists of augmenting his value on the job market. He would learn, for example, Heisenberg’s theory of indetermination in quantum physics, perhaps only acquiring an elementary understanding of its fundamental elements, not for the sake of learning and understanding but rather for improving his chances of finding employment later in time. In today’s world, man is primarily motivated by his fear for survival: regardless of the earner’s social and cultural status, survival can be guaranteed only by finding work which will pay a monthly salary that allows for his continued existence. Fear undoubtedly operates continually on a feedback cycle by sustaining its own source. Fearing the powers of the economic sector bestows indomitable credibility upon them and the world that they symbolize. Such power is possible only if the participants in the economy’s public and private sectors are themselves fearful puppets of the system upon which they seemingly depend. The degree to which the economy holds sway over man’s life, regardless of whether he reaps profit from it or suffers from the relative constraints it imposes upon him, is directly, though not singularly, correlated to his fear of the system that he perpetuates.

Our world is notably characterized by the universal yet unmentionable sway that fear holds over each and every person reaching into the highest administrative, political, intellectual, economic, and financial stratospheres.

The growing degree of complexity and uncertainty (the first of which is partially responsible for the second) that characterizes human life feeds fear on all levels. Relationships, exchanges, and interdependencies amongst individuals, societies, cultures, businesses, and States are such that the analytical approaches to their relative processes are ineffective. “Complex thought,” in other words trusting one’s fallible intuition, is the only strategy capable of providing an absolute or holistic approach to the world. The word “approach,” as opposed to fixed definitions and knowledge of objects, is key for the ultimate goal is efficient, real-time decision-making, or, in other words, rushed decision-making. Since time is a commodity, meticulously examining every question is an inefficient strategy. As a result decision-makers merely skim over important matters, pondering them at best, ignoring them at worst. Thus, the constraints imposed by the contemporary world and its economy lead to a fundamental fear of not knowing how to be relevant in today’s world as well as utter uncertainty with regard to rushed decision-making resulting from the complexity of the questions at hand. Such an appraisal of human life contributes to a defining tension of our era: fear feeds the desire to establish oneself with certainty and reassurance with regard to decisions made on a personal and professional level and in a world where the economy, occupying a growing space in man’s raison d’être, is increasingly uncertain, complex, rushed, or urgent.

One reason for which the economy, here understood as the governing element of man’s being, implies not only complexity but also a sense of urgency is that one such understanding is far from being universally accepted by all: without addressing in detail the complexities of Islamic extremism, it is clear that the attacks of September 11, 2001 testify to the refusal of certain peoples to accept the aforementioned reality. Be it motivated by a desire to impose their own means of gaining power and influence, or by the desire sought out by some for a truly pious world, the violence and extremism that lead to the September 11 attacks demonstrate and symbolize an undeniable form of resistance to the political influence, symbol of the economic weight, of the American state. Hypothesizing that contemporary, economic power serves the interests and desires of some at the expense of the greater good springs from resistance to the universal nature of economic power. Those seeking to counterbalance or even eliminate the growing influence of economics from man’s existence adhere to the aforementioned reasoning: desiring to do so acknowledges the existence of its antithesis, that the economy constitutes the fundamental governance of man’s existence. Establishing this relationship between man and economy is probably not the result of a conscious or voluntary effort. It would be more accurate to assert that the economy, rather than politics or philosophy, is the dominant, contemporary means for expressing man’s desire for power. In other words, alongside fear reigns desire, especially the desire for power. And if at all man is conscious of his own fear for survival, it is a result of the desire of those who seek power, who are able to leverage the means for acquiring such power, and who succeed in imposing the resulting requisites for existence on everyone else. Since economy is the dominant means in contemporary power struggles, economic life is the real-life symbol of a world that accomplishes, creates, constrains, and alienates man. It is also a power that is currently being challenged by other voices.

Understanding how and why the economy is at the center of our conception of time, regardless of our individual opinions with regard to time in that role, implies conceiving and understanding fully the construct of time in today’s world. But before doing so we must fathom why it is that finding one’s place in the contemporary economy, or perhaps even struggling against it, is requisite to survival.

2

Insurrection

Abstract: Renaissance humanism made clear the notion of control. Writers like Machiavelli, Descartes and Hobbes aimed at this very objective: making humans able to get rid of “nature”—be it human or non-human. Getting rid of “nature” would become possible through the development of a new scientific method. Despite the 21st century changes, our sciences and consequent techniques and technologies result from the Renaissance scientific revolution. Our lives are exceptionally under the sway of economics because modern economic life is rooted in the scientific way of understanding reality, the political one included—which is necessarily a way to transform and to appropriate it.

Keywords: control; Descartes; Hobbes; humanism; Machiavelli; modern sciences; technologies

Bibard, Laurent. Sexuality and Globalization: An Introduction to a Phenomenology of Sexualities. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. DOI: 10.1057/9781137469298.0007.

It is useful to understand the Ancient Greek origins of the term “economy” without narrowing its meaning: that which “governs the home” and encompasses the intimate and family sphere. Where its most immediate needs are concerned, this sphere consists of satisfying man’s vital requirements—food, clothing, and shelter—which, when fulfilled, allow him to procreate. It can therefore be argued that satisfying man’s vital needs is fundamental, at least in part, to the economy’s serving as a paradigm, a daily reality and a symbol of power. Notwithstanding the creation, development, unbalancing, and propelling of the satisfaction of these vital needs by desire and imagination, satisfaction of desire remains the underlying dynamic. The economy plays a preeminent role in man’s ability to live and survive thereby promoting a fear of failure that consequently drives his preoccupation with meeting both his vital and trivial needs. And yet man’s fear of failure also cultivates within him an archaic desire to succeed as well as to master those processes he undertakes in order to satisfy his desires and needs. Sooner or later, on both an individual and a community level, man is at least in part motivated by the need to master that which he undertakes since it will either directly or indirectly impact his desire for living as opposed to his fear of dying. As far as our lives are concerned, lives of which we are sometimes the recalcitrant incubators, this motive is the link that binds, energizes, and paralyzes us. The economy’s reign as the focal point of man’s modern-day activities is dictated by his desire to live, his want to control the outcomes of his enterprises, as opposed to his fear of death: his absolute and unquestionable lack of control. How is it, in the early 21st century, that man basically focuses the entirety of his actions around the economy, around his desire to live and his fear of death, each of which diminishes the meaning of his life to but one amongst many others?

This question is only relevant so long as man believes that he has goals, activities, or sources of meaning for his existence other than his own life. Various forms of suicide: individual, collective, warlike, orderly, or anarchical, organized by commanders, consciously and voluntarily deliberate, highlight the morose side of this posit which can also be constructively evidenced, at least in part, by all forms of activity and of independent sources that give meaning to the economic aspect of human life much like writing is an attempt at understanding and awareness.

Although the effort to understand how and why the economy dominates our perception of time is neither entirely economic nor techno-scientific; it does depend, at least partially, on current economic and scientific trends. Such an effort must be inspired from a place outside of the realm of the contemporary economy and the scientific and human techniques that support it. Working under the assumption that modern technology and sciences nourish an economy that in turn vectors them, the attempt to identify how our time is organized is neither “scientific” nor technical in the contemporary sense of the word. By this same logic, neither the human nor the natural sciences is an effective cipher in our perception of time. The aspiration to comprehend our time cannot, in fact, rely on history as a science capable of demystifying the genesis of the economic prerogative over other human activity. As is the case for all social studies, our understanding of history as a modern, social study depends mostly on a distant regard that we are attempting here. Nor can the preferred method for doing so repose on methodologies and epistemological work that have proven effective in analyzing social science, natural science, or social studies. We will thus be able to gain any methodological insight only at the conclusion of our current essay: a successful analysis alone will give way to a methodological construct allowing for and validating the process. The extent to which the following assumptions are deemed authoritative will be the barometer of our success.

The first of these assumptions concerns man’s contemporary preoccupation with wanting to live and his correlated fear of death, both of which compel him to seek an even greater mastery, and therefore control, over the outcomes of his actions in the context of an uncertain and complex world. It is also plausible that man’s aforementioned desire to live, though a universal one, can be traced back, in time and in space, to what is commonly known as the European Renaissance. Our objective is not in the least an exhaustive historical account in the modern sense of the word. Rather our primary focus will be to pinpoint the origin of a process that has overtaken us with or without our consent. To this end we will allude to two seminal texts that exemplify, though not singularly so, the event by which man turned his attention inward. The first of these texts is an excerpt of Descartes’ Discourse on the Method first published in 1637. The second excerpt is from Machiavelli’s Prince (dating from 1513).¹ The first of these excerpts is as follows:

But as soon as I had acquired some general notions respecting physics, and beginning to make trial of them in various particular difficulties, had observed how far they can carry us, and how much they differ from the principles that have been employed up to the present time, I believed that I could not keep them concealed without sinning grievously against the law by which we are bound to promote, as far as in us lies, the general good of mankind. For by them I perceived it to be possible to arrive at knowledge highly useful in life; and in room of the speculative philosophy usually taught in the schools, to discover a practical, by means of which, knowing the force and action of fire, water, air, the stars, the heavens, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• Part I Modernity
• Part II The Sexes
• Part III Time
• Bibliography
• Index