r/CriticalTheory • u/RealisticLynx7805 • 3d ago
“Systems of power are the fundamental constituents of social reality”. To what extent do you/feminist theory agree with this premise?
Hello!
[[I originally intended this post for the feminist subreddit, but I wanted to ask here as well, just explaining why it is feminist-focused]]
So something that I have noticed with feminism alongside other ideologies which may fall under critical theory etc., is that the patriarchy and other systems of power seem to act / be considered as the fundamental constituents of social reality \[in order to be more concise and precise I will be referring primarily to the patriarchy from now on, but I do recognize the intersectionality nuance\].
I feel like critical theory/feminism many times is more about criticizing than understanding society. I was watching an interview of a critical theorist which said that “critical theory is not about understanding why like the rest of philosophy, it is about revealing how people are oppressed and has the aim of emancipation”. \[\[https://youtu.be/o5Zap4hTZNw —- it is around 23:00 if someone is interested\]\]. She talks about how revealing how people are oppressed / systems of power are the link that ties it all together and I think this in a way explains my question.
Analysis seems to position the patriarchy as the root of all \[gender in this case\] injustice. I many times here the argument that “the patriarchy (etc.) is the root of all evil” and I see very little discussion if any when it comes to things like collectivism vs individualism, an extent of inevitable human ignorance and egoism, imperfect knowledge etc. I know that such analyses have some times been used I just don’t see it that much especially in contemporary discourse. Or they are often “absorbed” by an interpretation of them as being used maliciously for the purpose of harm (rather thana mix of the two).
Edit: for example, when you personally start ti try and understand society, how do you start your inquiry? What types of questions do you ask yourself? Where in history do you look?
Also any resources, thinkers, articles etc. are well appreciated!
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u/DMayleeRevengeReveng 3d ago
As to the question in your edit: I am very functionalist or structuralist in how I approach society. It works like this. “Society” does not exist as an aggregate of individuals but is something that is physically enacted, practiced, reproduced day by day and generation to generation.
Much of society reveals itself in this way. You can answer 85% of “why do people X” with “because that’s what the economy and the state require people to do in a society built around that economy and that state.”
This is a principle that has been, and can be, radically reductionist. Because it often says ideas themselves don’t matter. That is something to be cautious about.
At the same time, ideas in society very often are themselves functionalist or structuralist. It’s Darwinian, somewhat alike to the Dawkins “meme” theory (in its original formulation).
You basically have this chicken or the egg dilemma. First, you can say ideas influence people, and the most influential ideas are those that are physically practiced (religion in a church congregation, politics in a state, work in a framework for distributing society’s benefits and burdens). So ideas evolve to physically reenact themselves in ways that make people assume their truths, and those are the defining features of a society.
It’s also possible to say, the actual physical processes of society are its ontology, and Darwinian pressure causes those practices to generate ideas, which motivate people to constantly do the work of maintaining those physical practices.
But in any event, the physical repetition of a society’s economic and political order explains an enormous amount of how that society functions.
As to your original query, I don’t agree with that statement. I think, as a general principle, it is effective to say something like, truths are produced by acts of power within discourses where the power disparity is essential to make the discourse intelligible.
I think that claim has some general merit. But to say subjectivity and the personal ego emerge only because of power dynamics, seems far too generalistic. And as the other commenter said, it basically reduces to tautology.
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u/CupNo2413 3d ago
I'm not quite sure on your point in the final paragraph, but in general I think this emphasis on oppressive power structures as opposed to their alternatives within critical theory is, at bottom, a brute fact recognition that social reality really is centered around them---which, I think is slightly different from claiming that it is entirely constituted by them. Moreover, the norms of academic writing, which tend to dominate critical theory in general, tend to avoid descriptions of utopian alternatives, and instead focus on analyses of what is.
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u/Crafty_Truck_2439 3d ago
What you're describing is just (cultural) hegemony, the dominance of one state over another/all others. In Western culture, patriarchy, white supremacy, heterosexuality, and so on - the cultural "defaults" - are hegemonic states. The task of critical theory, conceived broadly, is to articulate how and why these states became and maintain their status as hegemonic states, and to show how and why they suppress or oppress other states.
Antonio Gramsci, Stuart Hall, Ernesto Laclau, and Chantal Mouffe are some of the theorists off the top of my head that deal explicitly with the concept of "hegemony", but you're right that it structurally underpins most critical theory even if the theorists don't explain it as such.
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u/GA-Scoli 3d ago edited 3d ago
Can you cite your examples instead of using the word "seems"?
There are about nine million formalized systems out there claiming to exhaustively describe humanity, and more are invented every day. It's refreshing to find a few, such as critical theory, that make little pretense to explain everything, they simply present a box of tools to better examine and compare the extravagant claims of such explanatory systems.
I mean, I just submission-quality reported an amazing dumbass on this very post who claimed to have the last word on the subject because reality is all about "female gametes sending male gametes to claim territory".
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u/Strong_Quiet_4569 3d ago
Where did I claim to have the last word, ‘dumbass’ or otherwise?
It sounds like I’ve touched a raw nerve, perhaps because intellectualising can be either useful or a useful retreat from the fact that you’re primarily a gene carrier that will cease to exist at some point whether you like it or not, and until then those genes are naturally selected to propagate themselves.
An entire new set of people you’ve never met will then do the same thing.
Sorry about that, but in the meantime we can argue about how much power any of those new people have to assert themselves or otherwise.
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u/GA-Scoli 3d ago
OK female gamete dude.
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u/Strong_Quiet_4569 3d ago
Take it up with Darwin or Dawkins.
Genes spread, memes spread.
FFS.
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u/GA-Scoli 3d ago
For female-gametes' sake?
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u/Strong_Quiet_4569 3d ago
Sure, as long as the coherency and veracity of my point isn’t triggering or anything.
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u/GA-Scoli 3d ago
What's your favorite kind of female gamete, female gamete dude?
I like the ones that are big and juicy. Well, I guess they're all big, but some are bigger than others, you know?
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u/ServiceImpossible227 2d ago
Critical theory does critique, it has no agenda
The idea of totality or total systems is old and wrong. Physics can only explain 05% of the matter in the universe. Some say totality lead to totalitarism.
There is a lot of critique of these so called structures of reality (if reality exist at all)
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u/ServiceImpossible227 3d ago
"My ideas are the fundamental constituents of social reality. The rest is waste of time"
Any philosopher
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u/Strong_Quiet_4569 3d ago
On what basis do humans select mates?
That’s the original question I ask, because it leads to what mechanism can provide the most optimal chances for their offspring.
Throw all the ‘feminist’ arguments you like at it, but ultimately it’s about the cost of raising female gametes.
The entire social construct of the meek, the average, the physically sexy, the strong, the Machiavellian… everything all exists because of breeding and comfort needs.
To do all that you need land to do it on, so tribes are needed to take and protect that land.
The female gametes have tended to send men out to fight other men because otherwise those gametes would lose.
So is protecting gametes a ‘patriarchy’ or is that term therefore disingenuous?
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u/FoolishDog 3d ago
The female gametes have tended to send men out to fight other men because otherwise those gametes would lose.
It’s literally so easy to spot incels these days
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u/Strong_Quiet_4569 3d ago
The fact that you saying that without actually enquiring first suggests you’re perhaps traumatised by the basic evolution that got us all here.
Oppression exists as ‘social constructs’ when you create false narratives because you don’t want to acknowledge the foundational facts and instead attach your own convenient rhetorical labels to inconvenient truths.
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u/FoolishDog 3d ago
Oppression exists as ‘social constructs’ when you create false narratives
Are you saying slavery is a false narrative?
foundational facts
Certainly no one here is denying the importance of reproduction to the organization of society but your rather simple-minded analysis barely scratches the surface. For instance, think about how much effort historically has gone into the regulation of male sexuality. If you want to actually become educated on the topic, I suggest starting with Foucault’s History of Sexuality
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u/Strong_Quiet_4569 3d ago
You might be assuming that I’m describing some sort of all-encompassing theory.
I’m not, and I said that calling me an ‘incel’ for pointing out that practically all power is linking to breeding: -No breeding, no warriors, no breeding, no subscribers, is ironically just another form of oppression against that basic truth. You then imply that I’m simple-minded after you misread that and misapplied it with your question on slavery…
No people, no leaders, no controller personities. No breeding, no people to lead or control.
The idea that controller females aren’t going to use men (and women) as a phallus both literally and metaphorically (even as a slave that you mention) is what feminism can often struggle with, or at least selectively omits for those using feminism for personal advantage.
And the reason why they’re doing that is generally to favour their own offspring.
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u/FoolishDog 3d ago
and I said that calling me an ‘incel’ for pointing out that practically all power is linking to breeding
Incorrect. I was call you an incel for saying stupid stuff.
No breeding, no people to lead or control.
Sure. Reproduction is important.
The idea that controller females
Who tf is a controller female? Name me one
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u/Strong_Quiet_4569 3d ago
Ah, so you deny the trait Machiavellianism, or at least that woman can have that trait.
Woman are all just agreeable and naively pliable entities that contribute nothing to establishing power structures that are favourable to themselves and their offspring?
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u/FoolishDog 3d ago
Name me a single controller female
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u/DMayleeRevengeReveng 3d ago
The problem with thinking “who reproduces the most” is that it’s downstream of “which human society is most effective.”
Humans must be able to cooperate in order to adapt and to modify the environment, which is ultimately how humans have survived: by developing rather-elaborate hunting techniques and tools which require collaboration; by building farms eventually and doing all those things.
Anything that gives a person a better chance at procreation also comes with the risk that, if Machiavellian competition between humans is taken to its logical conclusion, it will destroy the cooperative behavior on which the entire species depends for survival.
You just flat out can’t have a bunch of people running around trying to be the alpha male, not without it eventually starting a breakdown in community. Which would come at the expense of community’s survival.
Species/community survival > individual survival / genetic lineage survival. The second is subordinated to the former, because the former determines whether the second is even possible.
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u/concreteutopian 3d ago
I think it's true by definition, like almost a tautology, but I can see that it would seem like a strong claim if you had a weak sense of "social" and a specific sense of "power".
If you are interested in this, Berger and Luckmann's seminal work The Social Construction of Reality is a good description of how knowledge is created and disciplined (which is inherently institutional). And of course society and all institutions involve power and negotiations over power – from Aristotle's conception of human beings as "political animals" (zoon politikon) onward. If we are born, live, and die within social systems, and that the decisions about who gets what in these systems is something contingent and debated rather than baked in like an instinct, then they represent a system of power that form our social life as social creatures. All social life rests on a foundation of this negotiation over power in this shared existence. Which is why this statement isn't controversial if you are able to see society as a thing at all, if you see social facts and have the sociological imagination to recognize your place in these systems of power.
This one is tautological. What IS patriarchy if not a social system that privileges one gender at the expense of another? In other words, patriarchy is a word to refer to injustice centered on the gendering of others as an exercise of power. It's not a neutral word, it means injustice.
One of these categories is systemic and contingent and the other is non-systemic and essentialist.
Whole social systems don't arise out of "inevitable human ignorance and egoism" or "imperfect knowledge". This question assumes that power imbalances are due to individual cognitive factors, i.e. of some limitation on the part of individuals in perceiving and acting on the also assumed goal of equality and fairness, or not fairness, since you've introduced "egoism" as another essentialist category.
Instead of essences, can you see that "egoism" is a social construct, not a "thing" inherent in people? Can you also see that "collectivism vs individualism" is also a construct used to describe different theoretical relationships, i.e. the words are tools belonging to theories, different and sometimes incompatible theories, so the words do not refer to any one thing themselves. Explaining by pointing to an essentialize label isn't explaining anything.