The Politics of Plasticity

Life and the public are not given, fixed, or rigid; they are plastic. I have written about this before. This material, which takes on any shape and fits into its container, was initially a practical necessity. However, over time, it has radically transformed our lives, our minds, and our environment. The most characteristic feature of plastic, as we know, is that it is durable and flexible. As the paradigm shifted, in that famous phrase, "all that is solid melted into air." Flexibility has increased to such an extent that the old, unshakable distinctions between concepts, values, and objects have become meaningless.

The world we know is stretching. Genders, rules, language, and characters are stretching; lines are becoming rounded. The public, of course, is getting its share of this; the public is also becoming plasticized. Masses characterized by a certain political view can simultaneously approve of completely different, even contradictory, policies. With a self-evident understanding, the "us and them" discourse can replace all kinds of intellectual and moral dualities. The same mass can adopt the most radical left-wing ideas and the most radical right-wing ideas with the same reflex. The ability to be swept up in radical discourses but also to abandon this attachment instantaneously is, at first glance, astonishing.

STRATEGIC POSITIONING

Even today's forms of racism or marginalization are different from the past. Harsh rhetoric, rather than being rooted in deep ideological commitment, flares up and dies out like a flash in the pan. There is a wonderful concept that explains this situation: "Strategic Positioning." Subjects who make harsh and sharp statements do not actually aim to carry out what they say to the letter or bear its intellectual responsibility. The sole reason for this performance is to momentarily distance themselves from an understanding they react to at that moment and to announce this distance to those around them. Thus, they position themselves strategically.

In our country, this reflex is even more widespread. The overwhelming majority of discourses are not the product of a deep intellectual quest, but of an individual's effort to position themselves in digital publicity and to announce this position to the stands. Now, all individuals find themselves making micro-press statements via social media; they are putting on a show of moral, political, or intellectual positioning.

However, this strategic positioning is, by its nature, a floating, fluid endeavor. The moment the attitude of "them" changes, the strategic position can instantly change direction. Because, in the end, we and they can commit the same sin and take pride in the same virtue. Let's be clear: We are posing. Thanks to posing, we join temporary political clusters and escape loneliness, and more importantly, the burden of calmly analyzing events and problems.

As the public becomes plasticized, minds are beaten moment by moment by the turmoil experienced. We are surfing the waves of the agenda. Every time a wave hits, we stretch, position ourselves, make declarations, and then lose our uniqueness. Meanwhile, while judging the subject we consider our opponent, we write and draw for an "imaginary" court on the stage of history. During this time, we are actually just spectators. While this war of discourse on an imaginary plane continues, the horse has already bolted to Üsküdar.

The public has become plasticized, and so have individuals. Law and morality have also stretched according to the perpetrator, the place, and conjunctural interests. The only thing that does not stretch is that mechanism of producing hostility without a subject or object between the sides of polarization.

OVERCOMING BLINDNESS: FROM THE GIVEN PUBLIC TO THE CONSTITUENT PUBLIC

It is precisely at this point that the greatest blindness of modern politics and the immense opportunity lying at its very heart are hidden.

Traditional political philosophy and today's technocratic political mind fall into the error of accepting this current, plasticized, fluid state of the public as a given and fixed datum. Seeing the public as a mass trapped in the cold data of polling companies, permanently divided into ideological compartments, and untransformable is a political lack of foresight. This blindness ignores the most fundamental reason for politics' existence; that is, the opportunity and ability to transform the masses and rebuild them around a common ideal.

The "plastic" structure of the public does not mean that it can only evolve into a spinelessness open to manipulation. Plasticity is, philosophically, also an immense potential for being shaped and rebuilt. While it is nearly impossible to transform a fixed, frozen, dogmatic, and rigid mass, a public that stretches, becomes fluid, and overflows its existing molds is the most favorable ground for a new political constituent will, a fresh language, and a genuine moral awakening.

If the masses can stretch so rapidly between the most radical right and most radical left ideas today, this shows not only that they are drowning in an intellectual void, but also that none of the existing political clichés can satisfy the masses' deep search for truth and their structural problems. The flexibility of the public is, in fact, proof of how fragile and makeshift the hegemony established by the status quo is. The masses are posing because they have not been offered a space to be a genuine subject. They have been drawn to the stands because there is no real transformative will on the field.

The new opportunity and ability opening up before politics is exactly here: A political mind that takes into account the transformability of the public can turn the masses from spectators surfing on momentary waves into subjects of history. This flexibility, when met with the right intellectual yeast, a sincere emphasis on justice, and an inclusive Vision of the Future, can evolve the plasticized society into a rapidly bonding, conscious, and unshakable constituent power.

Politics is not the weakness of taking a snapshot of the current plastic state of the masses and positioning oneself accordingly; it is the art of reshaping that material with justice, reason, and virtue.

In this age of plasticization, blessed are the constituent minds that see this fluid potential of the masses, believe in the transformative power of the public, and dedicate this flexibility not to the entertainment of the stands, but to the construction of a bright future.