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| A Hideous Strength: No matter where a man is positioned in the social hierarchy, there is one psychically empowering privilege which he shares with all who embrace the rules of masculinity – a lifetime exemption from the socially-constructed inferiority and insecurity inflicted upon the feminine. Artwork: “Colossus” by Francisco Goya 1815. |
SIGMUND FREUD attributed the many maladies of human existence to traumatic sexual experiences in early life. Alfred Adler (1870-1937) attributed them to a different cause. According to Adler’s concept of “the will to power”, individuals – especially males – are driven by a determination to achieve superiority and domination over other human-beings. Assailed by feelings of insecurity and inferiority, emotional states which men are encouraged to associate with femininity, they embark on an unending quest for mastery. Of course, the will to power is not confined to men alone. Women’s all-too-real subordination in patriarchal society cannot fail to generate feelings of insecurity and inferiority – exciting the will to power in their own psyches.
Adlerian psychology, not much esteemed, it must be said, in the Twenty-First Century, nevertheless offers a useful way into the fraught world of Identity Politics. The practice of those promoting the politics of identity is driven by (some would say is utterly obsessed by) questions of power and privilege – who has it, who doesn’t, and what must happen if those without it are to get it. The answer would appear to involve an upward surge of resistance on the part of those for whom chronic insecurity and imputations of inferiority are a way of life, directed at those best positioned to claim superiority and exercise domination. In short, the question, repeated endlessly by identity politicians, is: “Who’s got the power?”
Obviously, the group with the most ground to gain from the quest for power through identity is the most powerless. Unfortunately, determining exactly who has the least power in society is an extremely contentious exercise. People of Colour may find themselves arguing with the disabled community about which of them is discriminated against most viciously. LGBTQ+ people may find themselves at odds with women over whose lives are the more insecure. It’s tricky. Fortunately, near unanimity prevails over who wields the most power and enjoys the most privileges: White, Heterosexual, Males (WHMs).
In practical terms, identity politics has only one clear goal: to depose the dominant identity group – i.e. WHMs – and strip them of their power and privilege. But, even allowing such a revolutionary goal to be feasible, it cannot avoid raising some hugely divisive political questions. To whom should the WHMs’ power be passed? With the formerly all-powerful WHMs no longer in control, which identity group is best placed to achieve superiority and domination over the human-beings below them? People of Colour? Women? LGBTQ+? The Disabled? And won’t whoever ultimately wins that struggle suddenly find every group below them striving to replace them? Won’t the winners instantly become the next target?
And what about those people who belong in more than one identity group. A WHM with a severe disability, for example? Or a Person of Colour who is also a member of the LGBTQ+ community? Or a White Lesbian? What happens when an individual’s advantages and disadvantages cannot be stacked in neat and tidy piles? Whose Will to Power should prevail in those circumstances?
Because there’s no point in arguing that as soon as WHMs are hurled from their privileged perches the struggle for superiority and domination will cease, and the will to power will miraculously fade from in the human psyche. Consciousness of privilege is well-nigh impossible to eliminate. Like the determination to defend one’s position in the social hierarchy, it is one of those human predispositions that are pretty much ineradicable. Awareness of those below cannot help but cultivate a sense of superiority. Just as knowing that the lower orders want what the powerful possess cannot help encouraging the ruling elites to keep them in check. And vice-versa. The Will to Power is as much about clawing-up as it is about kicking-down.
Patriarchy, the power structure that prevails across the planet, is no anthropological accident. The prehistoric overthrow of the daughters of the Earth Mother by the sons of the Sky Father made certain that human society was vertical rather than horizontal in its orientation. And the beauty of a vertical social structure, from the point of view of males, is that it makes it possible for all men to define themselves as essentially not-women. No matter where a man is positioned in the social hierarchy, there is one psychically empowering privilege which he shares with all who embrace the rules of masculinity – a lifetime exemption from the socially-constructed inferiority and insecurity inflicted upon the feminine.
The identity politicians’ obsession with power and privilege is understandable but, ultimately, futile. Even if the WHMs were cast to the bottom of the social hierarchy, how long would it be before they became the most vociferous challengers of the privileges enjoyed by all the identity groups above them? How long would it be before the cry – “Who’s got the power?” – became “We got the power!” “We” being all men: gay and straight, black and white, abled and disabled, rich and poor.
It’s hard to deny that old Alfred Adler was on to something with his Will to Power: repudiation of the feminine has always been the inexhaustible power-source of patriarchy.
This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Wednesday, 1 March 2023.
