ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the construction of ugly bodies and the implications of unconscious fears and aversions for the oppression of despised groups. Racist and sexist exclusions from the public have a source in the structure of modern reason and its self-made opposition to desire, body, and affectivity. Modern philosophy and science established unifying, controlling reason in opposition to and mastery over the body, and then identified some groups with reason and others with the body. The chapter discusses question moral theory, about whether and how moral judgments can be made about unintended behavior. If unconscious behavior and practices reproduce oppression, they must be morally condemnable. The chapter argues that moral theory must in such cases distinguish between blaming and holding responsible the perpetrators. The dissolution of cultural imperialism thus requires a cultural revolution which also entails a revolution in subjectivity.
