Against Supremacy

bigsley
5 min readNov 21, 2024

Abstractly, Supremacy has a structural form, an ideological framework, and an associated praxis for redress. This exists independent of the specific form of the Supremacy (e.g. “White Supremacy” or “Male Supremacy” (e.g. misogyny)). There are many “Supremacies,” but they all have similarities.

Structurally, Supremacy requires:
* A set of identifiable characteristics which defines the “Supremacy Class”
* An associated structure of violence known as the “Power Structure” of the Supremacy

Ideologically, Supremacy constructs conceptual relationships between the Supremacy Class the the Power Structure through historical, philosophical, and spiritual/religious justifications. This is equivalent to saying that, in and across individuals, Supremacy ideology has mental, emotional, and spiritual components. The conceptual framework of these components is like the “Software” of the Supremacy system.

The Redress Praxis associated with a given Supremacy system is built by “solving” for the contradictions inherent in its structure and ideology. I.e. by exploring the “Master/Slave” dialectic and finding sites of Fragility within the system.

In this way, we can analyze a Supremacy by simply describing its Structure (Class/Power), its Ideology, and its Fragilities.

— — An example: — —

White Supremacy in the United States:

Supremacy Class: people with generally lighter skin of European descent who publicly signify their membership in Whiteness

Power Structure: Collectively: federal, regional, and municipal governments, corporations, and resource distribution systems

Ideology: “White People are superior” because of their purported material historical dominance, their inherited intellectual lineages (Enlightnment/Modernist lineages, Continental Philosophy), and their religious lineages (Christianity, Judaism).

Note: Christian Supremacy and Jewish Supremacy are both Supremacy systems embedded in and inter-related to White Supremacy. However, these Supremacies also exist independently of White Supremacy.

Fragilities:

* The construction of the class of “White People” requires continual differentiate between “White” and “Non-White” which requires energy, intellectual capital, and continuous re-production. We can see various crises in the construction of this class throughout history, for instance people of Irish or Italian ethnicities becoming White at various points in the 20th century.
* White Supremacist history does not match actual history. Therefore, it has blind spots. Notably, adherents of White Supremacy are unable to understand movements which have been successful at undoing White Supremacy.
* White Supremacist philosophy/ideology asserts its “Truth” or “Correctness” as independent of the quality of the content of its philosophy/ideology. For instance, adherents of White Supremacy cannot see that other philosophical systems (e.g. Buddhist Philosophy, Persian Philosophy, Vedic Philosophy) had already advanced beyond its horizons hundreds or even thousands of years ago.
* Some branches of White Supremacist ideology holds European-descendent post-Cartesian Science as the single access point of truth (even social truth). This epistemology is woefully inadequate for addressing even basic questions of material relations and therefore gets stuck in endless contradictions and paradoxes.
* White Supremacist religious Supremacies generally dispense of written or methodological articulations of relationship to the Divine (c.f. the widespread secularity of many Christian and Jewish Supremacists). The reasons for this will be explored in the abstract, below.

The specific form of redress praxis required to combat White Supremacy will generally exploit the Fragilities listed above.

To quote: “We will get our asses kicked, but we we will win.”

— — Comment: — —

Supremacies are fundamentally unstable because they essentially trade access to material (resources, weapons, etc.) for Fragilities. As the Supremacy system grows its “center cannot hold” — it will either become brittle and succumb to fractionalism or become weak enough that outside/balancing forces will cause it various breaks, ruptures, etc. As it attempts to garner more Power its Fragilities will only increase, leading to an often exponential collapse.

— — Abstract Aspects of Supremacies: — —

Now that we have explored a specific example of a Supremacy system (White Supremacy) which should be fairly uncontroversial, we can expand and generalize these concepts to describe more abstract aspects of Supremacies:

Supremacy Class: Typically, a Supremacy Class will have a set of material correlates and symbolic Shibboleth that clearly delineate members of the Class from members not of the Class.

Power Structure: The Power Structure of a given Supremacy will often take the form of a Government, a Corporation, or some other bureaucratic system for 1. Differentiating members of the class from non-members, 2. Deciding on rules and regulations around material relations (e.g. property ownership), 3. Rules and regulations around the use of force (e.g. the “Military” or “Police” are “allowed” to use physical violence, but others are not)

Ideology: Supremacy ideologies are widely varied, but generally combine a re-telling of history which elevates the actions of the Supremacy Class, a philosophical system whose standards for Truth are biased w/r/t the membership or non-membership of the philosopher in the Supremacy Class, and a religio-spiritual system which positively asserts the relationship of the Supremacy Class with Divine or Archetypal entities. These entities may be things like “God” or “Gods” but they may be more abstract objects such as “Manifest Destiny” or “Divine Will” or “Civilization,” etc.

Fragilities:

Abstractly, members of the Supremacy Class become increasingly Fragile because their understanding of history, philosophy, the divine, and material reality itself become increasingly biased and flawed due to the inherent nature of the construction of those ideological aspects. Members of the Supremacy Class also grow in knowledge of application of physical violence while they simultaneously lose ground in other technical and material knowledges.

Crucially, since Supremacy is a fundamentally non-syzygetic dichotomy, breaking reality into “Members of the Supremacy Class” and “Non-members,” members of a Supremacy Class slowly lose connection to the powers of inter-relatedness, inter-connection, and impermanence. Diversity begets resilience — uniformity inherently creates brittleness and weakness.

— — Examples of relevant and active Supremacies in US c. 2024: — —

White Supremacy
European Supremacy
Christian Supremacy
Jewish Supremacy
Ability Supremacy (nondisabled people as the Supremacy Class)
Housed Supremacy (housed people as the Supremacy Class)
Class Supremacy (wealthy people as the Supremacy Class)
Cis Supremacy
Hetero Supremacy
Neuro-typical Supremacy
Corporate Supremacy (employees of corporations as the Supremacy Class)
etc. (list more?)

The fact that the culture of the United States is riddled with Supremacy systems and cultures is part of the underlying reason for the instability of its culture, its mass deployment of physical violence, and its general inability to progress spiritually or philosophically.

— —

I believe that Supremacies are generally “bad” — i.e. they consume tremendous resources, enact violence, create suffering, and do not produce any value or social good.

It is possible to destroy Supremacies by analyzing and exploiting their Fragilities.

I hope that this guide has given you some food for thought on how you can distance yourself from these systems by:

* understanding ways that you view reality w/r/t the associated Supremacy Classes
* inspecting your personal beliefs for biases derived from buying into Supremacy Ideologies

Once you have distanced yourself from these Supremacies you will grow stronger, more resilient, and will be able to take on the generations-long task of deconstructing all Supremacies for the Liberation and Good of all beings, big and small.

— —

Whoever you are, I hope you find this helpful. I dedicate whatever merit may arise from the reading of this to the Liberation of all beings. I dedicate whatever merit may arise from the discussions we may have on these topics to the Liberation of all beings. Blessed be and much love to you.

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bigsley
bigsley

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