Risk and Extortion VIII: Scatology and Eschatology

It’s a dirty job but someone has got to do it (we care a lot)

An anamnesis of kakistocracy requires an advanced scatological skill set. It is an empirical science that uses (a) forensics to establish the materiality of causality, (b) archaeology to uncover that, which has been erased and ( c) genealogy to map the traces of their unfoldings. Empirical scatological research is a dirty job but someone has got to do it.

To question: “what do rich and powerful men want?” is indeed already a scatological one. Is it a coincidence that there is so much public fascination about the claim that Trump loves s(h)itting on a gold or gilded toilet? Given the fact that Trump’s name also appears in relation to golden showers, does suggest that at the level of public mythology, there is an innate kakistocratic sensibility associated with his personality. There are also numerous reports about the paranoia of Putin going as deep or as low as concerns about securing the integrity and whereabouts of his excrement. As usual, South Park had already sniffed out, that there is something odd about faecality and fame.

It would also be very premature to label the right-wing populist fascination with gender and toilets in lieu of fears about trans-women as a mere coincidence. The reasons are not so difficult to understand, the dialectical nature of the Establishment is that of orderings and perversions. The more obsessed an establishment is with maintaining order as a goal in itself (as in fascism, the most extreme form of neurosis), the more perversions it will engage in as order-for-itself generates disorder-for-itself. 

However, when engaging in empirical scatology we must not ignore the cowardice. As much as kakistocrats may enjoy their perversions, they do not have the courage to own them. This is a constitutive part of the toxicity of kakistocracy and makes empirical scatology more difficult as most forensic evidence is likely to have been tampered with, for example by replacing history with mythology. History in elementary schools is often merely extolling the virtues of rich and powerful men, while ignoring what has enabled their glorification, which includes – for example – blaming others for their mistakes (which is a tried and tested rhetorical tool in autobiographies). As a master kakistocrat, Trump always blames others for his mistakes. It should come as no surprise therefore, that one major area of right wing extremism is the cancellation of critical historical analyses in favour of “patriotic mythology”. This is why the vast majority of Israelis today are convinced that the genocide of Palestinians is nothing to be ashamed of but something to be celebrated.[5]

Blaming others and replacing history with mythology are just two techniques used by kakistocrats to prevent an empirical scatology from uncovering the causality of why we are in deep shit today. This is not just a metaphor. For example, the fact that the intensity of the meat industry has produced massive problems with pig manure, phosphates and nitrogen in the Netherlands, is being denied by the vast majority of political parties. Instead, the farming lobby have successfully convinced public opinion, that there is a direct correlation between the volumes of pig manure and the wealth of the nation. Indeed, as 60-70% of pork production in the Netherlands is being exported, the manure overload is a byproduct of the accumulation of wealth of the agribusiness, which employs about 0.82% of the entire population (between the ages of 16 and 65) of the Netherlands.  The distribution of wealth and manure is therefore extremely skewered. The newly grounded Farmers Citiziens Movement Party, however highlight that the agricultural industry produces food for domestic consumption rather than shareholders. That is, being drowned in pig manure is necessary because “we” need to eat pork. The pig farming sector is responsible for approximately 20% of the Netherlands’ total manure production and contributes to 25-30% of phosphate production. Notably, over 60% of the phosphate surplus is linked to pig farming. Indeed, empirical scatology can help us reveal that unlike the political rhetorical claims of the Farmers Party, the pig manure stands in relation to profit margins, not in relation to nutrition. It is part of the global interest in cheap food, which in turn serves the interests of imperial-patriarchal-capitalism.

Whereas scatology focuses on that which has been passed, eschatology focuses on that which is to come, in particular the end game. Being concerned with what is believed to be the end of history is easily mixed up with an interest in the ending of history and a complete surrender to mythology. Kakistocracy – as being rooted in defilement and cowardice – engages in an endless stream of eschatological practices of broken promises, lies, deceptions and gaslightings. It presents us with as many unrealistic accounts of the future as with rejections of accountability. Promises of a Greater Russia, a Greater Israel or a Greater America are rooted in the barbaric practices of their actualization. They primarily function to legitimate calls for sacrifices from others, not themselves of course. Being cowards, kakistocrats never aim to suffer the consequences of their own decisions, just as they never make decisions in the presence of those affected by it.

Kakistocracy engages in eschatologies without regrets, because its innate cowardice has made it immune to critical self-reflection.  However, just as empirical scatology works against the grain, by retracing the links between extraction and excretion, so can critical eschatology provide maps that include the lies and deceptions of those that benefit from it without making them invisible.  A central part of critical eschatology is to expose the libidinal-political-economy of corruption and defilement. When the book of Daniel, for example, describes the features of the beast, who will appear at the end of times, it is very easy to associate them with the core characteristics of a kakistocrat: boastfulness (e.g. blowing one’s own trumpet), deceitfulness, cowardice, loudness, corruption, destruction, blasphemy etc.  It is of course more than ironic that “Republican Jesus” – also a meme widely circulating among critics of American Christian Nationalism – is the absolute opposite of the biblical Jesus Christ.  Indeed, Republican Jesus is the biblical anti-Christ.

Whereas no serious sociologist would undertake an eschatology based on the book of Daniel as a literal description of the future, it would be stupid to deny that it has helped shape the future, as Christianity spread under the protection of European Imperialism. As the rule of perversion, Kakistocracy has no problem switching images of Christ and the Anti-Christ, thereby making Satanists and atheists look quite tame and compliant by comparison. The USA are currently showing the world the true barbarism of the perversion of Christianity.

Of course, there are many historical documents of atrocities committed in the name of Christianity (as well as other religions). Eschatology does not necessarily need to restrict itself to a future. For Palestinians in Gaza, the End of History has already happened; for Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, it is immanent. However, those committing the genocide and supporting it are also being absorbed into the vortex of the End of History. As they justify or celebrate the genocide, they expose themselves as that which they claim to destroy; thus they are destroying themselves. To be an Israeli today is a terrible burden; to have voted for Trump may turn out to be equally unbearable, to be silent in Germany in the face of genocide might be – at least historically speaking – business as usual, but one does not need to visit Auschwitz or Dachau to be reminded of the perverse cowardice of kakistocarcy.  That is why we need critical eschatology, not so much to describe the temporary pain and suffering at the end of history, but to remind those indifferent to the barbarism of kakistocracy, of their own eternal damnation and suffering at their own hands, even if they were to die an otherwise painless death. Some people are so poor that all they have is money.