Queer Joy & Resistance

 From an article in Salon:

When progressive political commentator Keith Edwards recently turned the New York City Pride March into a two-hour livestream of queer joy, he put a name on what he was doing. The GLAAD-backed broadcast was built, in part, for people watching alone in states where Pride can feel dangerous. “One of the most radical things you can do in a moment of extreme fear and a moment of authoritarianism,” he told The Advocate, “is to experience joy and happiness.”

Weeks earlier, RuPaul had posted that the only response to fascism was to party and dance, and was sharply criticized for it. Two moments, weeks apart, but the same uneasy question beneath both of them: Is joy resistance? Or is it what we call avoidance when we want avoidance to sound principled?

In a country where LGBTQ+ people are watching their rights stripped away in statehouses, drag performers turned into political targets and trans people used as campaign-season fuel, “go dance” can sound almost heartless. But queer people have had this argument before.

In a 2013 Washington Blade essay about coming out during the AIDS crisis, Dave Purdy remembered older gay men telling him it was wrong for his generation to dance, party or enjoy themselves while their gay brothers were sick and dying. He and his friends rejected that view. For them, the dance floor was not an affront. It was survival, self-love and something close to church.

…

The dance floor was not where the crisis disappeared. It was where the living found one another inside it. That is the part America often forgets. Survival is not only the refusal to die. It is the insistence on remaining human while threatened.

This is the sort of journalism that gets people excited: by just partying and doing whatever you want, you are caring for yourself and this is a valid way of staying centered, and even of… Resisting! 

But the funniest aspect of this is that we are talking about two self-inflicted crises: 

AIDS: Gay men giving each other a lethal disease through fornication. 

Conservative Ascendance: Liberals pretending they are fighting fascism because conservatives have power and are using that power to enforce the law. 

It’s so melodramatic and comical to paint continued engagement in self-destruction as self-care. 

Self-care and resistance during the AIDS crisis is not fornicating. 

Self-care and resistance during the MAGA era is staying informed, debating, participating in the marketplace of ideas. 

But all these guys know is how to justify their vices. Their entire political worldview is based on it. 

Minnesota Liberalism

 

Paul Skallas is not entirely wrong here... In fact, there is something very important about his observation: Minnesota's liberalism is an expression of cultural traits that are deep and inherent in the Scandinavian culture of many of the settlers who are an integral part of the rather unique upper Midwest attitude.

I am no expert on Scandinavia, but I am from a Scandinavian-American family based in Minneapolis yet I grew up several hours away from it and got to experience both deep Minnesota liberalism and the highly rational but short-sighted & ineffective conservatism of the voters that do make North Dakota an unquestioningly red state in national elections - all while having an even more distinct & exclusively Scandinavian-American demographic.

The Scandinavian-American is simultaneously communitarian and existential. This sounds like nonsense, but Scandinavia is defined by its high trust in institutions, welfare states, massive sense of social responsibility and reciprocity, and there is also an expectation of everyone to be on the same page and not fall behind. Yet, this has the typical Stoicism found in WASP culture, and the geographic hardships of the harsh winter and rugged terrain bred both a sense of dependence on others and also a sense of self-reliance, independence, and even isolation. You could even say that the communitarianism of Scandinavians enables existentialism because support networks are impersonal and obligated, and thus the individual feels isolated even when he is being "supported."

It is also the case that the Christianity of Scandinavia was deeply influenced by the Pietist movement within Lutheranism which emphasizes the very personal and emotional aspects of religion. This does not have to be inherently liberal as it would be misleading to suggest that these are a people completely devoid of conservatism - North Dakota and rural Minnesota are massively anti-abortion and none of this is rooted in Catholicism. You can also look at previous faith statements from many 20th century churches and see them denounce things like divorce and rock 'n' roll music. My great grandfather was a Pietist minister who didn't let his children watch movies because he equated Hollywood with Babylon, and this was something my grandmother proudly relayed to me. She was a conservative, but also decidedly non-judgmental and "hands-off." She would tell you to your face that rock 'n' roll music is poisoning the minds of the youth and cite the case of some teens killing themselves after being inspired by Kurt Cobain, but ultimately, this is actually irrelevant. The narrow path versus the broad path is timeless, and the particular form of the devil in the culture is irrelevant. The choice of the path you walk is purely that of the individual, so the most devout Scandi conservative even in the reddest part of North Dakota is effectively disarmed as they would respect your right to walk whichever path you chose and would not make any claims as to know which one you are on.

Lutheran Pietism was inherently skeptical of authority, emphasized the individual relationship with God, humble living, "deeds not words" - "function over form," and felt that the person who internalizes true Christianity in a way that is unconventional is superior to the dogmatist. This reminds me of another Scandinavian-American told me that 'Lutheranism is the Buddhism of Christianity.' He's not wrong. One of the right things that Lutherans do is emphasize the personal journey of the Christian and seeing spiritual life as going to a hospital and not a court... Just as such, the Buddha spoke of treating the wound caused by the arrow, not debating the origin of the arrow. But this does contain within it a fatal flaw with the wrong ecclesiology. Without having the ability to reach a consensus on the ultimate truth, you end up with lots of people who do not even subscribe to the truth. Without the truth, you do not know the severity of the injury and end up treating a major affliction like a minor ailment.

The homosexual now presents himself as someone with a minor ailment to the church community, and with a doctrine that does not believe the true Church is embodied anywhere on Earth, that just also believes the religion is ultimately personal, that we are all sinners, that this is all just... our journey.... It gets very difficult even for conservatives to navigate the relationship. The most conservative ones rightfully state that they cannot accept unrepentant homosexuals as normal members of the church nor condone their behavior and take a very rational Protestant approach, but the wedge gets pushed deeper & deeper & deeper, and over the decades more ministers splinter with the culture until ultimately the hyperindividualistic spiritual egalitarianism of Lutheranism leads to a collective spiritual poverty.

The gay becomes no different than a guy who has jerked off to internet pxrn before. Nobody can judge him. He's a full member. Get him a wedding because, ultimately, it would be hypocritical for a church that has no say in anyone's divorces and no sense of ministerial stewardship and interference in the parishioner's personal life to deny them... And the church is just a building. The wedding is just a ceremony. We do not apply litmus tests to other people's marriages. We don't stand in the way of divorce. We don't confess our sins. We don't commune with the actual body & blood of Christ afterwards. We are told to not judge... So let's have a fabulous gay wedding.

Now, if the conservatives come from a religious heritage like this, it becomes effectively impossible for them to stand up to liberalism effectively in the political life. The most they can do is clarify that they are not actually bigots, defending themselves from the accusation before it even comes, and carefully justify themselves to the whole world as the good conservatives who are completely defanged and whose objections are more about fiscal policy and the limitations of government than presenting any sort of challenge to the prevailing cultural norms.

Because there is not clearly set out, timeless standards, and there is no hierarchy that effectively organizes resistance and enforces orthodoxy to those standards, the conservatives are largely adrift. They are not even conventionally part of the 'Moral Majority' and the Evangelical attempts to resist cultural change...

And you see that among the conservatives of Minnesota and North Dakota: exceedingly few of them feel some kinship with the energetic Bible belt conservatives that have fought for invocations of prayer at schools and Ten Commandments, and even fewer are creationists. They are highly secularized while suffering from the same problem of deracination that has infected all of American conservatism.

So while North Dakota is 'red,' it is certainly the case that their culture is also still reflected in the innate, deep liberalism of Minnesotans.

The liberalism goes deeper than anywhere else in the US because of the fact that it is not mixed with revolutionary zeal or electrified by modernity but actually has its roots in communitarianism and existentialism that are paradoxical yet cooperating characteristics with deep roots in the culture.

Marcotte & Salon Misleading on CRT

 What a dishonest article from Amanda Marcotte over at Salon:

Yet with so many white people across the country in a total freak out over "critical race theory," it appears few, if any, of them could even explain what it actually is. That's because, despite what Fox News is telling them, critical race theory — the actual academic framework that was developed in law schools to understand the historical reasons our legal system perpetuates racial inequalities — is not, in fact, being taught to 3rd graders or even 11th graders. Claims otherwise are a complete lie, ginned up by right-wing propagandists who are desperate to keep the GOP base whipped into a racist frenzy.

Firstly, CRT is generally understood by people. Of course, it would never be difficult finding a collection of people who have difficulty articulating it, as broad concepts become difficult to put into words when a proverbial microphone is shoved in front of one's face, but people know exactly what it is, and what it ties back into: cultural Marxism. 

CRT can be understood by the narrow definition presented above - as purely legal theory that is certainly not being taught to third graders, or it can be understood with a broader definition as they are oft presented by the academics involved themselves:

"Critical race theory is a practice. It's an approach to grappling with a history of White supremacy that rejects the belief that what's in the past is in the past, and that the laws and systems that grow from that past are detached from it," said Kimberlé Crenshaw, a founding critical race theorist and a law professor who teaches at UCLA and Columbia University. (CNN)

Thus, what is meant by teaching CRT in schools? That the approach to history is of one that deals with white supremacy, and insists that it is an on-going fundamental reality in the US. 

It would essentially be re-enforcing ideas like

Critical race theorists believe that racism is an everyday experience for most people of color, and that a large part of society has no interest in doing away with it because it benefits White elites. (CNN)

So, we can ask ourselves: 

Is there a movement to bring these into schools? Yes.

Is there a movement for American history to be taught this way? Of course. 

Now, why is it linked to Marxism? Because many of the players are Marxists - some of the founders of BLM are self-described Marxists. 

CRT is also relatable to what can be more broadly understood as [i]Critical theory.[/i]

Max Horkheimer first defined critical theory (German: Kritische Theorie) in his 1937 essay "Traditional and Critical Theory", as a social theory oriented toward critiquing and changing society as a whole, in contrast to traditional theory oriented only toward understanding or explaining it. Wanting to distinguish critical theory as a radical, emancipatory form of Marxist philosophy, Horkheimer critiqued both the model of science put forward by logical positivism, and what he and his colleagues saw as the covert positivism and authoritarianism of orthodox Marxism and Communism. He described a theory as critical insofar as it seeks "to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them."[6] Critical theory involves a normative dimension, either by criticizing society in terms of some general theory of values or norms (oughts), or by criticizing society in terms of its own espoused values (i.e. immanent critique).[7] (Wikipedia)

And one cannot really understand critical theory as something that is apart from Marxism, even when Marx is being used in a relatively normal sense. 

... and... What does Wikipedia say about Critical race theory?

Both critical race theory and critical legal studies are rooted in critical theory, which argues that social problems are influenced and created more by societal structures and cultural assumptions than by individual and psychological factors.[5] (Wikipedia)

Marcotte continues:

 It is important to note that the fabricated fury over "critical race theory" is a cleverly constructed right-wing troll. Liberals who want to respond with a quick, easily digested rebuttal are instead boxed into a frustrating corner. Because pointing out that critical race theory is not being taught in public schools is a trap, as it could be construed to imply that there's something wrong with critical race theory. And any straightforward defense of critical race theory implies that schoolchildren are somehow expected to understand graduate school-level academic theories. But in fact, the real issue at hand is that conservatives don't want white kids to learn even the most basic truths about American history. 

Marcotte essentially denies that CRT can exist beyond the very narrow definition and thus goes against academics that have brought it into more broad terms that are easily communicable to children, and, more interestingly, presents us with a false dichotomy: we're trapped because if we explain all this so-difficult, professional academic tier theory to the conservatives, we'll be inadvertently saying that schoolkids are able to understand this! 

I also do not understand the final sentence: the real issue at hand is that conservatives don't want white kids to learn even the most basic truths about American history, as if we are now willing to accept that curricula are being changed to  get in line with the current academic trends... excuse me, LEGAL academic trends. 

 Instead, as Sean Illing at Vox explains, "conservatives have appropriated critical race theory as a convenient catchall to describe basically any serious attempt to teach the history of race and racism." 

This is completely dishonest as there were not conservative movements that existed to whitewash history in the 1990s and 2000s - none that are remotely similar to the backlash against CRT today. Yet, anyone who went to school in the US in the 90s & 2000s (and before) would be able to tell you that they were taught up & down the history of race and racism in the US, and even abroad. 

So much so that it is patently absurd for Sean Illing to pretend that this is not the case.

The article eventually stumbles into incoherence: 

And that's the crux of it: Schoolchildren aren't really being taught critical race theory, but critical race theory — the actual framework, not the right-wing scare term — is a legitimate academic pursuit that has turned up important facts that white supremacists of yore have covered up. And it's those facts — things like the practice of redlining, the truth about what the Confederacy stood for, what Martin Luther King Jr. really believed, and the history of lynching and events like the Tulsa race massacre — that conservatives want to silence.

Does anyone actually believe that debates about the values and stances of the Confederacy, MLK's beliefs, lynching, the Tulsa massacre, etc., are subjects that were not being understood or explored without this academic school? 

These words can only be written by someone who is an academic, or who suckles upon their teets. Regular people are constantly digging into history, studying our past, and are interested in the philosophies of MLK and the Confederacy. Academics are welcome to join them, too, and are even welcome to create their own particular schools & circles that focus on it, regardless of how erroneous and far from the mark they come... 

But crediting themselves with as the true & honest shapers of all korrect opinion about actualité is really a bit much to stomach.  

Feel free to skip the rest of Marcotte's article - I did.