I read this children’s book when I was eight, about the two world wars that gave birth to the United Nations, a triumph of good over evil, civilization over barbarity, ending with NASA’s space missions to the moon, and so on. Basically a fairy tale for Christendom’s conscience—the usual formula of Disney’s it’s a small world after all. But maturity demands we confront the wizard behind the curtain: Western universalism is not a ship steering toward justice but a Procrustean bed,1 stretching and amputating the particularities to fit its so-called “civilized” template.
There’s nothing original or new about it—it’s the same recycled Platonist script,2 the formula later adapted in Dante Urbinate, commissioned by Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, in 1478.3 The manuscript renders Dante’s Divine Comedy as a cosmological ascent toward divine unity. But what is the fantasy that requires “universal harmony”? How does the repression of its deeds serve the opulence through conquest and destruction? Federico’s patronage, funded by mercenary campaigns and territorial ambitions, sought to inscribe his legacy into the story of Christian civilizing missions—the narrative where heaven is not universal but hierarchical, where paradise is reached by erasing or subjugating what lies outside its carefully illustrated borders.
But this is not a symbol of a mature culture or society. Maturity demands a more complex taste—an understanding of history that transcends the Manichean simplicity of the Master-Slave dialectic.4 How does one inspire a parochial mind? Perhaps we can begin by comparing two mythical figures: Proteus5 and Procrustes. Proteus, the shape-shifting sea god from Greek mythology, symbolizes adaptability and fluidity, capable of changing forms to evade capture. In contrast, Procrustes was a bandit who forced travelers to fit into his iron bed, either stretching or cutting their limbs to make them conform. These figures illustrate two opposing approaches to life and governance: one embraces diversity and change, while the other imposes rigid, oppressive conformity.
There’s a viral video making the rounds of a white Norwegian man screaming, “This is Europe!” while making Sieg Heils6 at those celebrating the Palestinian’s survival of 478 days of genocide committed by a unified front of Western fascism is not a symptom to ignore. The id7 of the West, erupting, is the repressed Real of colonial desire for all to see. Ursula von der Leyen’s identical cry during the Ukraine crisis, “This is Europe!” reveals the same neurosis: a civilizational superego frantic to police its geographic and psychic borders. This obsession with boundary enforcement extends beyond rhetoric.
The phrase “This is Europe!” functions as a superego injunction—a command that delineates who belongs and who does not. It operates as a psychotic structure, requiring the foreclosure of history, culture, and entire peoples to maintain its fragile coherence. By erasing the complexities of its past—colonial violence, genocidal practices, and the complicity of its institutions—Europe constructs a fantasy of purity and unity that cannot tolerate contradiction. This repression manifests in acts like Switzerland’s violent detention and deportation of Ali Abunimah,8 a direct assault on journalism and free speech. Such actions underscore Europe’s inability to reconcile its proclaimed “universal values” with the reality of its exclusionary practices. NATO’s eastward march, like the Oslo man’s rage, betrays a terror of porousness—a desperate attempt to shield its ideals from the “alterity” they purport to champion while perpetuating a violent Procrustean order.
What does the statement This is Europe! truly elucidate? Is it a line drawn in desperation, defining who belongs within the bounds of civilization and who is excluded? Or is it a psychotic injunction that Europe must uphold by foreclosing history, culture, and people to sustain a fragile fantasy of unity and purity? If the coherence of Europe’s identity depends on erasure and violence, how can its values ever claim to be universal? What does it mean for a civilization to demand the sacrifice of truth and alterity for the sake of its own illusions? Cognitive dissonance9 can be a real pain.
And how does this rigidity manifest in the debates surrounding trans issues, where the very notion of Proteus fluidity becomes a threat? Drawing on Ann Pellegrini and Avgi Saketopoulou’s Gender Without Identity, we see that the insistence on rigid categories reflects a deeper psychic investment in normativity as a means of managing anxiety.10 This Procrustean impulse to amputate or stretch identities to fit narrow frameworks is symptomatic of a civilization obsessively defensive against ambiguity.
For example, debates over trans rights often devolve into moral panics about “protecting children” or “defending biology,” which mask a terror of losing control over fixed identities and boundaries. Does this reaction not expose a broader cultural malaise—desperate enforcement of rigidity as a way to deny the inherent fluidity of desire and existence?
Growing up, there was a sense of unity—of shared values under the umbrella of the United Nations. Even the United States seemed to promise a world of hope and unity. The children’s book I read at the library was filled with images of people from all backgrounds and religions. It painted a picture not too dissimilar from the intergalactic harmony depicted in science fiction.
But over time, exposure to culture, literature, and cinema—beyond the limits of indoctrination like Disney—reveals inconsistencies, myths, and the wizard behind the curtain. The cracks in the narrative widen, especially as Western nations increasingly defy international rulings, such as the International Court of Justice's call to arrest genocidal war criminals. This defiance comes at an extraordinary cost: the abandonment of the moral leadership and world community that justice demands. By choosing impunity over accountability, these nations trade the principles of universal justice for a hollow preservation of power. How can a civilization that evades its own systems of justice claim to lead a world that aspires to dignity and truth?
There’s a meme circulating about our technofeudal lords—Zuck, Musk, Bezos. It suggests that we’re ruled by losers: man-children inept and incompetent. This is what happens when a society trades truth for knowledge. But wisdom isn’t for sale. In classical Chinese thought, wisdom is encapsulated in the concept of 聖人 [shèngrén], as reminded by Professor Thorsten Pattberg.11 The 聖人 embodies a holistic and ethical understanding of the world, deeply tied to 道 [dào],12 a way of transcending transactional logic. Unlike the commodification of knowledge and dignity in Christian-secular ecclesiastic traditions,13 the 聖人 represents the cultivation of virtues through humility and interconnectedness. We’ve been led to believe that we can improve things if we just pay for VIP access or the higher-tier subscription. Yet this transactional mindset has turned its back on centuries of development and maturity—not only in the West but also in forgetting these ancient sources of wisdom that prioritize harmony and balance over dominance and exploitation.
This current version of the genocide and the suppression attempts reveals the underlying operating system of our current ideology: racial capitalism. It functions as a Procrustean logic—a bureaucratic straitjacket that amputates the fluidity of liberation to fit the master’s rigid fantasy. Racial capitalism ties the exploitation of labor to the extraction of value from racial hierarchies, maintaining a system where the colonized are forced to erase their desires to sustain a global capitalist order masked as “civilization.” Whether through the UN’s “human rights” theater or the NGO-industrial complex’s subscription-based activism, this order perpetuates domination under the guise of progress.
This is the great lie: that liberation can be purchased, that dignity is a commodity. Meanwhile, the adolescent oligarchs of the West—the Zucks and Musks cosplaying as philosopher-kings—reveal the moral bankruptcy of a civilization that has traded wisdom for widgets and solidarity for Tesla trucks. It doesn’t take a genius to notice the sociopathy of Zuck or the fascist desires of Elon, as he video calls the German fascists, to let go of their feelings of genocidal guilt.14
It turns out that white supremacists are not fit for governance. Their domination results from geographic chance, cunning tricks, and violent abuse rather than inherent superiority. This myopic strategy lacks the capacity for truth. NATO and the West may have produced temporary agreements and even fleeting “peace,” but they cannot produce truth. The forced participation they enforce is coercion, not consensus.
The genocide in Gaza has laid bare the empire’s brutality, its bloodlust, and its inability to provide true community. Palestine is the litmus test—not because its suffering is unique, but because it mirrors the West’s repressed trauma: the Holocaust industrialized by its heirs. Israel’s genocide, bankrolled by Washington and normalized by Hollywood’s narrative machinery, is the Procrustean project incarnate—an entire people stretched on the rack of settler time, amputated from history, land, and hope. Yet the Palestinian resistance persists, embodying صمود [sumud].15 صمود is not merely endurance but a radical refusal to yield, a profound assertion of dignity and existence against erasure. This steadfastness is a sinthome of the Real that refuses assimilation. As Fanon observed, the colonized’s madness is the inability to comprehend their own non-existence.16 A community is not held together by subscription but by consensus. Consensus requires dignity. Violence and domination can never provide dignity.
The question we must ask ourselves is this: How do we move from the rigid conformity of Procrustes to the fluid adaptability of Proteus? How do we abandon the myths of domination and embrace the possibilities of consensus and dignity? Only then can we hope to build a world that values truth and wisdom over coercion and violence.
The term "Procrustean bed" originates from Greek mythology and refers to the infamous rogue smith and bandit Procrustes (also known as Damastes or Polypemon). He would capture travelers, tie them to an iron bed, and force them to fit its size—either stretching them if they were too short or cutting off their limbs if they were too tall. The phrase has since become a metaphor for rigid conformity or forcing disparate elements into an arbitrary standard, often through violent or oppressive means.
Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. Penguin Books, 1955.
This repetitive continuation of Platonic philosophy on Western thought, particularly its emphasis on ideal forms, hierarchical dualisms (e.g., soul/body, reason/emotion), and the pursuit of universal truths is the framework that has been repeatedly adapted and repackaged throughout intellectual history, influencing Christian theology, Cartesian dualism, and even modern neoliberal ideologies.
For discussions on the persistent influence of Platonism in Western thought, see:
Lloyd, Genevieve. The Man of Reason: "Male" and "Female" in Western Philosophy. Routledge, 1984.
For detailed reference to the Divine Comedy: Urbinate Manuscript, see:
Facsimile Finder. "Divine Comedy – Urbinate Manuscript." Accessed January 27, 2025. https://www.facsimiles.com/facsimiles/divine-comedy-urbinate-manuscript.
Fanon challenges the reductive binary of the Master-Slave relationship in Hegelian thought, emphasizing the complexities of colonial dynamics and psychological liberation. This work extends the dialectic into the lived realities of race and colonialism, pushing beyond the simplistic duality often associated with the original framework.
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Charles Lam Markmann. New York: Grove Press, 1952.
Proteus, the shape-shifting sea god in Greek mythology, is referenced as a symbol of adaptability and elusiveness. Often used metaphorically, Proteus embodies the capacity to transform and evade, making him a common figure in literary and philosophical discussions about identity and change.
Homer. The Odyssey. Translated by Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books, 1996. (Book 4, lines 351–570).
The phrase Sieg Heil ("Hail Victory") was a Nazi salute and slogan prominently used at rallies and gatherings during the Third Reich as a symbolic affirmation of allegiance to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. It has since become a well-known emblem of the regime's totalitarian propaganda and militaristic ethos.
Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960.
The "id" here references Sigmund Freud's model of the psyche, representing primal, unconscious desires. In this context, the colonial "id" reveals the West's unresolved fantasies and contradictions of domination and appropriation, which periodically surface as eruptions of violence or symbolic assertion. For further reading, see Freud, Sigmund. (1923). The Ego and the Id. Translated by Joan Riviere. London: Hogarth Press; and Lacan, Jacques. (1977). Écrits: A Selection. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Norton.
Ali Abunimah is a Palestinian-American journalist, author, and co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, a prominent independent online publication focused on Palestine. Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Europe and the United States, Abunimah is a leading voice in advocating for Palestinian rights, critiquing Israeli settler colonial policies, and addressing U.S. and international complicity in the occupation of Palestine. He has written extensively on these issues, including two notable books: One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse and The Battle for Justice in Palestine. His work emphasizes a one-state solution based on equality for all citizens and critiques the systemic oppression faced by Palestinians. Abunimah is known for his sharp analyses of media biases, political rhetoric, and the global dynamics sustaining the occupation.
Cognitive dissonance is the uncomfortable feeling you get when your actions, beliefs, or values don’t align. For instance, if you see yourself as an honest person but tell a lie, it creates this tension because it clashes with how you want to think of yourself. To ease that discomfort, you might justify the lie by saying something like, "It was for their own good" or "It doesn’t really count because it didn’t hurt anyone." Similarly, if you believe smoking is bad for you but continue to smoke, you might rationalize it by thinking, "I only do it occasionally," or, "It’s not as bad as other things." This process happens because we like to think of ourselves as consistent and rational, and when something challenges that, it feels off—like an itch you can’t scratch. People usually deal with this by either changing their actions, adjusting their beliefs, or finding ways to justify the conflict, often bending the truth just enough to make it feel okay. Leon Festinger, a psychologist, first described this in the 1950s, and he showed how powerful it can be by studying a doomsday cult. When the world didn’t end as they predicted, instead of admitting they were wrong, the members claimed their prayers had saved it. It’s a subtle but universal process—one we all experience when we try to protect the way we see ourselves, even if it means reshaping reality a bit.
Pellegrini, Ann, and Saketopoulou, Avgi. Gender Without Identity. New York: Unconscious in Translation, 2020.
Pattberg, Thorsten. Shengren: Essays on the Confucian Sage. New York: LoD Press, 2011.
道 [dào] refers to "the way" or "path" in Chinese philosophy, most notably in Daoism (Taoism), where it represents the fundamental principle underlying the universe, emphasizing harmony, balance, and natural order. For further exploration, see Laozi's Dao De Jing (道德经): Laozi. (2007). Dao De Jing: A Philosophical Translation (trans. Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall). Ballantine Books.
The term "ecclesiastic" originates from the Greek word ekklesiastikos (ἐκκλησιαστικός), meaning "of or pertaining to the church," which itself derives from ekklesia (ἐκκλησία), meaning "assembly" or "gathering." In historical and cultural contexts, "ecclesiastic" refers to anything related to the Christian church, its clergy, or its organizational structures. These traditions often positioned the church as a central authority in both moral and intellectual matters, claiming control over what counted as legitimate knowledge and moral dignity. Institutions tied to these traditions have historically turned abstract values like "knowledge" and "dignity" into something transactional—something that can be controlled, distributed, or withheld to reinforce authority. For a broader critique of this transformation, see Foucault, Michel. (1995). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (trans. Alan Sheridan). Vintage Books, which discusses how institutions like the church transitioned into secular systems of control, where the management of knowledge and moral authority shaped societal power structures.
Sumud (صمود), an Arabic term meaning "steadfastness" or "resilience," has become a cornerstone of Palestinian identity and resistance, symbolizing their enduring commitment to remaining on their land despite decades of occupation, displacement, and adversity. For an in-depth exploration of the concept, see Tamari, S. (1991). "Palestinian Sumud: Steadfastness, Ritual, and Resistance." Jerusalem Quarterly, 3(4), 25-37.
Fanon, Frantz. (1963). The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Richard Philcox. New York: Grove Press.
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