Rape Civilization

Though our political, socio-economic world operates according to the dictates of rapacity, many continue to deny the existence of rape culture; a denial (itself a technique of rape culture) as deeply rooted in delusion as the denial of the general ecological catastrophe, from which rape culture is inextricable.

This violence is so pervasive, so much the norm, that we too often fail to perceive it at all. It goes without saying, and without seeing. Given not just its ubiquity, then, but its intrinsicality to capture, appropriation, extraction, and exploitation (the bases of patriarchy, imperialism, and capitalism), it would not be inaccurate to describe ours as a veritable rape civilization.

Present from the beginning, we find it throughout antiquity in the mythic rapes of Zeus, Poseidon, Heracles and other gods and ancient heroes, as well as in the quasi-historic rapes of, among others, the Sabine Women (expressions of not just physical desires and insecurities but of deeper desires for order and stability, for control of the anxiety-inducing mysterium – leading quickly enough to anesthetizing dogmas and hierarchies).

We encounter this again and again, from the conquests, slavery, and rape of ancient times to modern imperialism’s rape of the globe, to the present-day rapist-in-chief plotting the rape of Venezuela in order, in no small part, to distract from the epic rapes of Epstein‘s rape networks. From the micro street corner level to the macro-level plantation, prison or sweatshop, to the halls of academia, Hollywood, and let’s not forget the Catholic Church (just one of the many rape cultures comprising this rape civilization), rape is ubiquitous. Not just the exception, it’s the rule. And not only is it the rule, it’s a classic technique of rule. So ubiquitous is it that even the famed critic of coercive power, Noam Chomsky, is caught up in this coercive, violent order.

One may point out that although the violence of rape (normalized in the practices and values of rape civilization) is a necessary aspect of this age of destruction, referred to sometimes as the Anthropocene, rape is hardly unique to anthropos/human beings. Male orangutans in particular are known to rape female orangutans. Yet this primatological tendency can not excuse rape, as though humanity is helplessly determined by nature to brutality and barbarism. Our humanity, where it arises, is inimical to such brutality. But we are not discussing nature so much as rape civilization, which is comprised and perpetuated by ideology, laws, and institutions; entities which, as history attests, change and so can be changed. As our technologies (largely the technologies of rape civilization) grow more and more powerful, however, they lead overwhelmingly to the aggrandizement of rape civilization, brutalizing us all. Which way, then, is the exit, the exodus (or the epoché)?

Will Moses emerge from the desert, ascend the mountain and add Thou Shall Not Rape to the commandments? Don’t count on it; especially since the Bible itself, and the hierarchical religions emanating from it, is one of the central pillars of Rape Civilization. Just look at Moses authorizing the mass rape of hundreds of young Midianite girls. It’s not hard to imagine him feeling right at home at one of those Epstein mass rape events described so politely in the Rape Civilization Press as parties.

More than commandments, though, themselves entangled in relations of force and domination, we need to overcome Rape Civilization itself. Fortunately, millions of people across the planet are every day doing that, working on developing new ways of living together that are based instead on mutual aid and respect – the real clash of civilizations.

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