~by Massimo De Angelis ~
We have seen it for years around the issue of migrants. We have seen it with the war in Ukraine and we are seeing it with the climate protest, and now around the Palestinian issue: they are in every way trying to close the spaces for the production of a collective thought different from and a sensibility incongruent with the established norm of the order of things on crucial issues of life. For years, migrants have been stigmatised as delinquents, just as virtuous practices, such as those adopted in Riace (Italy), have been stigmatised by accusations that turned out to be unfounded. From the very beginning, supporters of alternatives to the war in Ukraine have been stigmatised as defenders of Putin. Non-violent direct actions by activists in the face of government immobility in the face of climate catastrophe are stigmatised as eco-idiocies that deface monuments (even if only for a few hours since they use washable paint) and slow down traffic. Voices denouncing the horrors of the Israeli bombardment of the civilian population in Gaza, and putting the Palestinian issue back at the centre as central to peace-building, are stigmatised as defenders of terrorism. And then there are the transversal stigmatisations, where the stigmatisation of critical voices in one sphere, lends itself to amplifying the stigmatisation in another sphere. For example, Arye Sharuz Shalicar, spokesperson for the Israeli army, told POLITICO: “Anyone who identifies with Greta in any way in the future, in my opinion, is a supporter of terrorism.” Here is the well-served given to climate justice from a force that as a whole has intensified and perpetrated social injustice in Palestine for more than 70 years.
Stigmatisation is part of a widespread disciplinary mechanism in society, a disciplinary mechanism that Foucault referred to as the ‘factory of ethics’, and which has as its object the defence or preservation at all costs of a norm of the current order of things, its internalisation by subjects. The norm here is very conventionally understood as a set of rules, behaviours or standards accepted and shared by a group of individuals within a society or community. These norms define what is considered appropriate, acceptable or desirable in certain social situations or contexts, regulating behaviour and maintaining the social order and its hierarchies.
Michael Foucault emphasised how these norms are not simply objective rules, but rather elements of power devices that can influence people’s lives. Norms are produced and reproduced by these devices of power and are used to discipline and regulate people’s bodies and behaviour, particularly within institutions such as prisons, hospitals or schools, and also through spatial and architectural forms such as Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon. But as I already discussed a few years ago in my book The Beginning of History (Pluto, 2007), the fundamentally panoptic disciplinary mechanism also extends outside of spaces architecturally dedicated to this function, and is recognisable even within the mechanisms of the capitalist market, as rationalised by its main ideologues, such as Frederick Hayek. And not only that. In the cases mentioned above, the mechanism is based on the stigmatisation (amplified by the media) of alternative thought, and the attempt to reproduce and amplify a norm of thought, attitude, behaviour compatible with the status quo of the present order of things. Stigmatisation is the antechamber to criminalisation, and thus associated with the ‘reward and punishment’ (or carrot and stick) pair that underlies disciplinary processes.
Stigma is a key concept within Erving Goffman’s symbolic theory of social interaction and refers to a negative mark or attribute associated with a person or social group that leads to their social marginalisation or rejection. Although Goffman did not explicitly address the relationship between stigma and fear, it is possible to draw some conclusions about the link between these concepts based on his analyses. Stigma is rooted in fear, it is a mechanism for circulating fear. In various social settings, non-stigmatised, ‘normal’ people can often react to those who carry a stigma with fear, prejudice or anxiety, and feelings of fear or concern. They may fear what is different or unknown, they may fear the consequences of stigmatised ideas, fear the horizons of transformation that they open up if only they are taken seriously. On the other hand, people who carry a stigma may experience fear because of the negative reaction or discrimination they may encounter from others. Fear of discrimination, prejudice or rejection can influence the behaviour and identity of stigmatised persons. Fear of their criminalisation as stigma bearers follows logically.
The tragic thing behind my emphasis on the dynamics of silencing people through stigmatisation and criminalisation is not just wanting to highlight a form of injustice towards the stigmatised. Much more is at stake. The fear that stigma feeds on and reproduces, silences the very thing we all need to hear about now more than ever. Firstly, the possibility of reconciliation and the obtuse search for peaceful solutions to conflicts so as to curb the schismogenetic spiral inherent in processes of violence. And then also fundamentally, the possibility of taking back our social cooperation in forms that make the reproduction of everyone’s everyday life congruent with the reproduction of living conditions on the planet. Stigmatisation is therefore one of the forces arrayed against the construction of the common in all spheres. Through stigmatisation one tragically limits the horizons of the possible, and constructs a reality forced into a prison, a prison in which, at the time of writing, the people of Gaza are emblematically living and dying under Israeli bombs.