Things Visible and Invisible

 

What should be seen and not seen in spaces defined as ‘public’? I think common sense a guide that will do for most of us but the problem with common sense is that it is never quite enough of a guide. Say we define a certain space as ‘secular’ or ‘Canadian’ or ‘Christian’ or 'American’. It then becomes a real question what people who fall outside those descriptors owe such spaces. People who will generally tolerate the other, do so on the implicit principle that they do not have to see the other in spaces it defines as its own. I doubt many people in Quebec, to use one example, care that much if a person practices Islam or Sikhism. However, they seem to care very much if such people are part of their visual environment especially in places, like government offices, over which they feel some ownership.  This creates a dilemma for some but not for others. This is because certain religions demand visible marks of difference while others do not. This means ‘laicite’ laws (Law 21)  will always be inherently discriminatory, placing a burden on some and not others. This matters little to the proponents of such laws for discrimination is what they are all about. Policing visible difference  is that point at which one begins the task of constructing a hegemony and a hegemony is constructed by discriminating between what should be seen and not seen. Sights that are ‘triggering’ to the hegemon must be hidden for controlling such sights is the marker of social power. Conversely, the other must be reminded of THEIR subordinate status by the open celebration of sights that ‘trigger’ them. This, by the way, is not a difference between left and right. It is what left and right are fighting over. Politics becomes much simpler and clearer when we drop the pretense that we are seeking ‘equality’ when it is clear as day that we are actually seeking hegemony defined as control of public space. This is because there is no conceivable public space that does not exclude someone or something even hypothetically and we all fight to define who that someone or something is going to be. At least the government of Quebec is being honest about this.                

Peak hegemony is achieved when I must always be visible to the other against whom I define myself while that other is always invisible to me. I must be seen by him but he has no corresponding right to be seen by me. If I am in Quebec it is my ‘look’ that must be seen on T.V. in the name of ‘neutrality’. By being the ‘same’ I get to be neutral and in a state neutral about ‘religion’ it is my ‘secular’ face (which is also, alas, a ‘white face’) that is the face of the general society. This is the sham aspect of liberalism for the face of the same is the face of public neutrality while the other, who dares have his own face, is the face of particularity and tribalism. Liberalism is built on the pretense that the same is faceless and the other faced. There is, however, another aspect of liberalism which is not sham and this is what I call ‘liberal peace’. Once we admit that we are in a struggle for hegemony we get to see what sort of danger we are in. This danger is readily defined. Concern about the visibility of the other is grounded in fear and no law policing visible difference is adequate to assuage the fear that brought it into being. The other finds ways of making his presence known. This is especially true online. Here the other is a pervasive and intimate threat as we saw in my previous piece. Effectively, there is only one way to guarantee that people who should not be seen are not seen and that is to make them dead. This is why Quebec’s ‘secularism’ laws do not lead to social peace but to mosque shootings. The state can never do enough to make sure the other cannot be seen for it is bound by laws. Laws that police visible difference cater to a desire that no law can fulfill! The answer to such a dynamic may well be ‘liberal peace’. Liberal peace obtains when no particular interest is allowed to fulfill its quest for hegemony: to maximize its own visibility by minimizing someone else’s. This is a state where all agree to be in part visible and in part invisible because that is the best compromise and the quickest path to not having ‘culture wars’ which threaten to turn into actual wars.