The Dynamics of Political Humiliation and Resistance as Psychosocial Well-Being

It is the American Republic—repeat, the American Republic—which created something which they called a “nigger.” They created it out of necessities of their own. The nature of the crisis is that I am not a “nigger”—I never was. I am a man. (James Baldwin, 2010, p. 49)

I speak with the rage of angels. (Amiri Baraka, 2014, p. 452)

In every generation, ever since Negroes have been here, every Negro mother and father has had to face that child and try to create in that child some way of surviving this particular world, some way to make the child who will be despised not despise himself. (James Baldwin, 2010, p. 60).

Philosopher Avishai Margalit (1996) argues that a decent society does not humiliate its members. Yet a cursory examination of good-enough or stable societies often reveals that one or more groups are the targets of political humiliation, whether by the state or non-state actors (e.g., individuals, organizations, and communities). One can point to the Turks in Germany, Muslims in France, Palestinians in Israel, African Americans in the United States, LBGTQ folks in Russia, Uyghurs in China, and untouchables in India as illustrations of the seeming pervasiveness of political humiliation. In each of these cases, political humiliation involves systemic misrecognition that is coupled with the attenuation of resources and services vis-à-vis the humiliated group, all of which undermines their psychosocial and material well-being. Even decent enough societies, then, seem to have some segments of the population who are dishonored, marginalized, and oppressed for the sake, more often than not, of securing economic, social, and political power, privilege, and prestige for other citizens.

In this article I am interested in understanding - reliant on psychoanalytic conceptual tools - the dynamics of political humiliation and its psychosocial consequences, as well as the types of resistance to political humiliation. I depict political humiliation in terms of a modified notion