The Biopolitics of Hate
I’m writing this post because it has come to my attention that some individuals may feel certain people deserve or should be tortured for the culture they represent. This is one of the most heinous and cunning deceptions that often influences other people’s attitudes and perceptions about other people’s differences. It also directly opposes what our constitution has long stood for. At the base of the Statue of Liberty, it is written,
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”
To believe in the ideology that certain people or groups deserve, or should be tortured for the culture they represent is most certainly “words teeming with refuse.” No one deserves to be tortured, or raped, or murdered for no good reason whatsoever unless the U.S. Supreme Court feels that a penalty of death is warranted in certain cases.
In my academic study, I have studied sociology and culture, and diverse groups of people who possess diverse cultural lifestyles. One of the latest releases on sanctions, in American democracy, involves the drug culture and one where more and more states are now declassifying marijuana as illegal and making recreational marijuana legal. The groups who tend toward this type of behavior may have at one time or another been involved in the illegal drug culture. Does this mean they deserve to be tortured? Most certainly not! Yet, there is a pervasive point of view that certain groups, who represent cultural differences, deserve to be harmed. This is simply not true! For various groups make up the majority of U.S. citizens from Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, homosexuals, transgender, bisexual, lesbians, Asians, Guatemalans, African Americans, even people who practice BDSM, and those who engage in prostitution make up groups who have historically needed protection from acts of hate in American history.
The latest phenomenon to emerge has been termed, Targeted Individuals. These individuals claim they are being gang stalked and targeted with electronic physical assaults and psychotronic torture. The individuals who make up this group are being targeted by a biopolitic, a word coined by Johan Rudolf Kjellen, a Swedish political scientist, to mean the intersectional field between human biology and politics (medicine and the law). Biopolitics takes the administration of life and a locality’s populations as its subject. To quote Michel Foucault, it is “to ensure, sustain, and multiply life, to put this life in order.” During the time of Alan Turing, the nature of this biopolitic took the shape of castration for homosexual males, if their true identities were ever discovered. Turing earned his bachelor’s from the University of Cambridge and his Ph.D. from Princeton University and was working on decoding Russian ciphers at the time of his untimely death during the Cold War. Today, this biopolitic has changed. We no longer consider homosexuality a form of criminal behavior, nor can we legally castrate homosexuals as a form of punishment for their “deviant proclivities.” We no longer recognize this behavior as “a threat to the security and order of human affairs.” Even still, prostitution, although illegal, in my opinion, does very little “to threaten the security of the social order” and the necessary order of human affairs. This form of social behavior is more of a benign threat and may actually provide a greater service to the biological needs of men. However, these groups, homosexuals, prostitutes, blacks, have historically been targeted with hate, and they are still targets of hate even today.
It is easy to see the flaw in the belief in “a common culture for all.” America was primarily born with its own “common culture,” with a strong sense of essentialist beliefs that certain characteristics are important for upholding fundamental principles in American values and American politics. When a common culture or anyone’s cultural values are placed into question, what follows is an adversarial debate which can lead to conflict. A conflict that may be rooted in fundamental differences and foreclosure against the “Other” based on ethnic, religious, gender, and socioeconomic standing. We witnessed a form of this breach in American cultural values with the storming of the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021.
Obviously, some behaviors must be punished because they threaten the security, tranquility, and domestic order of America. Behaviors such as forcible rape, physical assault, homicide, and stalking. But, “What happens when behaviors that are not a threat to the security and order of human affairs are punished because of a biopolitic that utilizes administrative tools (whether it be administrative medicine or administrative legal sanctions or both) for the control of life at the local level for the purpose of absolute control over certain individuals who are found “threatening” within the population?” Isn’t this what was done to Alan Turing, one of the greatest cryptanalysts with one of the greatest minds for cracking ciphers, because he was gay? I would really like to know what every Targeted Individual being victimized has done to have been found guilty for deserving such treatment? Because as near as I can find, they all simply make easy targets for some predator, and we know that most common thugs are spineless because they target vulnerable, disadvantaged, and easy groups. Hitler targeted the Jews because he had the power and the resources to do so.
So, now let me ask, “If a homeless person gets beat up by somebody on the streets because he is homeless, did he deserve the beating and bring that punishment upon himself because he was indigent?” Sadly, some individuals would say, “Yes.” But you see the point I’m trying to make. Right?
