Culture and Coercion 1

Written by: Artxell Knaphni on December 29, 2012.

This is a response to Bill Benzon’s fifth comment on Terence Blake’s post, “here“.

The concept of ‘Zero’ may have developed in India, but military technology developed in the West. Genghis Khan was able to acquire the territory belonging to more developed civilisations through application of superior military techniques. The “geopolitical” is not culturally insignificant, it produces cultural effects. The ideology of war, what I seem to be calling the ‘philosophy of coercion’, is not merely limited to the battlefield, but is quite possibly constitutive of the ‘human’ imaginary, the ‘human’ self-image. This constitution is constructed and maintained. And it is a cultural administration that so perpetually constructs and engages in such incessant maintenance.