To recall, in part one of this article I argued that secular power is pervasive because it operates at the level of cognition. It creates a sense of paralysis by conflating a secular situation with reality as the natural and insurmountable order of things. This, in turn, makes it impossible for consciousness to make the distinction between the [secular] world-as-it-is and an [alternate] world-as-it-ought-to-be. The brief mention of the notion that we must accommodate reality, in part one of this article, was intended to bring to fore another and perhaps the most powerful manifestation of power: reality-making. Let us expound on this notion of reality.
Secular Power and Reality-Making
As persons, we always find ourselves in a ‘situation’ be it familial, political, economic, and so forth. The situation can be favorable or unfavorable. To mediate these situations, we adopt an orientation predicated on an understanding of the situation and an envisioned course of action adjudicated against some normative or technical criteria. The situation is perceived to be contingent and surmountable, and as such, there exists the possibility of choice because we know that the situation could be otherwise. Reality, on the other hand, is not perceived to be a situation but rather merely the “way things are.” A reality is insurmountable and there is no perceived capacity for choice. A situation becomes a “reality” when we internalize an image of the self and the world as being normal and inevitable. This is an example of how power operates. The exercise of violence creates a situation but the exercise of formative power creates Reality. The Secular order does not present itself as one order among others, a historical or contingent possibility among other possibilities but as an inevitable and natural progression of reason as Reality. In internalizing its claims, we transform a colonial situation into a permanent and lived reality. (Read More)
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