I Will Follow Him...

 

I'm old enough that I should know better, but when my Facebook memories dredged up this gem today, I was amazed all over again at how aggressively stupid Richard Dawkins is.  It seems to me that Karl Marx still has more than a "few followers" today, and I suspect that Dawkins believed that, however few he has, they are still too many.  What's a follower, anyway? I suppose Yuval Noah Harari was his target here, but typically for the kind of thinker he is, Dawkins likes airy, sweeping dismissals of his real or imagined opponents.  The Marxist writers I'm aware of have read his work and study it, but they're not uncritical, not what I think of as followers.  I have read very little by Marx, so I don't have an overall sense of his ideas.  Besides, like many heavy thinkers, he changed positions over time, so: which Marx?  Dawkins makes it easy in this case: I suppose he means the Marx of Capital, the massive analysis of capitalism he didn't live to finish.  I haven't read it, and I wonder if Dawkins has.

I also don't think I understand what he intends by devoting time "to the Internet & human genome."  As I've noticed before, Dawkins has a tendency to write sloppily, especially on social media, and then to complain when he is, or thinks he is, misunderstood.  Did he mean that potential Marxists should instead seek employment in the tech industry or biotech, and if so, why?  Should they forget their reading of Capital and simply enjoy the rewards of working for Google, Meta, X, or the distinguished biblical scholar Peter Thiel?

This reminded me of the neuroscientist Robert M. Sapolsky, who once wrote (in The Trouble with Testosterone (pp. 107-8]:

We all do indeed have our dark sides. One evening, that great horned toad of an awkward intellectual, Karl Marx, came home from fulminating in the British Museum. "At any rate," he wrote to Engels that night, "I hope the bourgeoisie will remember my carbuncles all the rest of their lives." As well they did. Few of us can ever hope for that level of retributive pissiness. We merely fantasize about returning someday to our childhood neighborhoods, encountering the ex-bullies or the catty girls who were in the in-group when we were not, and beating them into contused, bloodied contrition with our thick stack of diplomas.

Luckily, it wasn't Sapolsky but his DNA that wrote this weird, confused passage.  After I first read this, I found the letter by Marx his DNA quoted, to find out what had upset him so much, and wrote about it here.  Briefly, he was upset by the abuses of child labor in Britain in the mid-19th century, and by the efforts of manufacturers to block any legislation that might keep them from exploiting it. It's certainly fascinating, and symptomatic, that Sapolsky's DNA put that on the same level as being turned down for a date by "catty girls."  My DNA doesn't quite see the connection, but then I'm not a neuroscientist.  Sapolsky's DNA recently published a book called Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will (Penguin, 2023), but I don't know if my DNA will be able to find the time to read it.  I'm sure it's every bit as deep as his reflections on Marx.

My DNA did read An Unfinished Revolution: Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln (Verso, 2011), edited by Robin Blackburn, which includes among other things, Marx's journalism for a radical New York newspaper during the American Civil War and his correspondence with Abraham Lincoln.  I was impressed by the clarity and intelligence of Marx's coverage of the conflict.  Dawkins might not care that Marx's followers today would pause their reading of Capital long enough to put together such a book, but he should at least be aware that they did.  Marxism is definitely pertinent to the connections between chattel slavery and "free labor" as it developed under capitalism, and I'm sure Dawkins would at least pay lip service to the idea that slavery should have been abolished; even that child labor isn't a good thing.  In the past it displeased him At his age, there's probably little hope that he'll give up sharing his opinions on matters he's ill-informed about and hasn't given any serious thought, but the world would be a less entertaining place without his outbursts, and nowadays I need all the entertainment I can get.

All Your Genes Are Belong to Her

I found myself grumbling crankily over liberal reactions to American Eagle's ad campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney, so here's a little more.

Another brand put out a commercial featuring a pretty actor saying “This tan? Genetics. I just got my color analysis back and guess what? Golden summer.” While susceptibility to tanning rather than burning may have a genetic component, a tan is no more genetic than a haircut, or the clothes the actor is wearing.  That's another reminder that most people don't know what "genetic" means, and shouldn't be taken seriously when they invoke it.

But that includes inclusivity-minded liberals who think that being gay or trans is in one's genes, or that one's cultural tradition is in one's DNA, or that a man seeks the US Presidency because his DNA drives him to do it, in hopes of connecting with some hot female DNA once he's arrived. (That last one is particularly painful, since the claim comes from one of America's best liberal writers, who subscribes to a bonkers idea about what DNA does and clings to it, rather sadly, despite harsh pushback from his commenters.)

I think a similar confusion drives the liberal freakout over Sydney Sweeney.  Why not say: okay, she has good genes – so do any number of other people.  Sure, racists think that only whites and especially she has good genes. The problem is that liberals think so too: if she has good genes, no one else has them.  Remember Chris Hayes's claim, in his book on meritocracy, that once you've found the absolute best soprano in the world, there's no reason to listen to any other. Then remember A. E. Housman's comment on another classical scholar's work: "Three minutes' thought would suffice to find [that] this [is complete wackery]; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time."  But liberals are addicted to "Oh, how can you say such terrible things?" as the first move in public discourse; for thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.

I've written before that people like Sweeney, far from being special, are the least common denominators of human attractiveness. They can therefore be marketed to the largest possible number of consumers.  Marketing and consumption is what they are used for - and never forget that without mass communications and the institutions of publicity and marketing, she wouldn't exist as a star.  So thousands, even millions of men, can fantasize that her smiles are for them alone, and if she was lucky enough to meet them, she'd immediately recognize their supreme value; likewise, thousands or millions of young women can fantasize about being that desirable.  On some level they all know it's just a fantasy, but it's still a rush.

If Sydney's genes are so great, though, she should be having babies - lots of babies - to perpetuate them.  She's only their temporary custodian; that's what eugenics is all about.  American Eagle's copywriters know it too: "In the ad, the blonde hair, blue-eyed actress says, 'Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color.'" (You didn't think she wrote her own lines, did you?)  The same is true of her appearance.  Her genes may give her a head start, but without workouts, makeup artists, and hairstylists, she wouldn't glow as much, and time's winged chariot is already bearing down on her.  Not to pick on her alone, this is a well-known problem faced by all people whose appearance is their fortune; the examples of Cher, Michael Jackson, and Madonna - not to mention Laura Loomer, Kristi Noem, and Lauren Sánchez - stand as a warning to us all.  

And while she's apparently a registered Republican, if she utters any heterodox opinions, her MAGA fan base will turn on her without mercy.  So far it doesn't seem that Sydney Sweeney is such a big star; no doubt she's hoping to parley her new notoriety into reaching a higher level.  That will have to be seen.

The Trouble with Sydney - Born That Way?

There was a kerfluffle recently over a new ad campaign for American Eagle Jeans that featured Sydney Sweeney, a young model and actress who for some reason has become MAGA's sweetheart.  Not long before, terminally online right-wing guys were drooling over pictures of her cleavage and crowing that the Woke Left doesn't like pretty white girls -- take that, libtards!  Or this.  Or something.  These were the same guys who threw tantrums because M&Ms were no longer sexy enough to please them, and complaining because liberal co-eds didn't want to date them.  (Why did they want liberal women to date them anyway?  Social media are full of "conservative" males denouncing liberal women as fat lesbians with tattoos and piercings and blue or pink hair who will never get a man; or as stuck-up hot bitches who think they're too good for a regular guy.  But this is all just the mirror image of doughy gay guys who complain that some hot guy wouldn't breed* them, and I digress.) 

The ads' slogan was "Sydney Sweeney has great jeans," with Sweeney chiming in "My jeans are blue."  Cute, but dumb - but then this is the world of advertising.  I remember amusing myself with the genes / jeans homonym as in the 70s, when I was younger and dumber though not cuter.  American Eagle had every reason to expect that the youth market would giggle and embrace the slogan and shell out for AE's not-made-in-America products. It got off to a promising start, with Donald Trump endorsing it after he was told that Sweeney is a registered Republican, and American Eagle stocks taking off.

But then things changed.  There were many complaints that the ads promoted eugenics and white privilege (Sweeney is blonde and blue-eyed), which you'd ordinarily expect would help sales.  But then sales fell off and foot traffic in American Eagle stores declined - not drastically, but noticeably.  The business press suggested that AE might want to dial it back.  Certain MAGA celebrities and media denounced the Woke Mob for discrimination against white people and the sacred Free Enterprise system, though they were happy enough when they could claim that America had rejected Gender Ideology and forced businesses to stop using trans celebrities in their marketing.  Boycotts for me but not for thee.  All very predictable.

What had surprised me, though, was the objection to "eugenics."  Everybody knows that eugenics is bad.  But liberals and progressives generally love biological determinism, invoking genes and chromosomes and DNA and evolution.  They love to claim that this or that cultural phenomenon is "in our DNA."  In its day, before the Nazis ruined it for everybody, eugenics was as popular on the left as on the right.  (See Andre Pichot's The Pure Society [Verso, 2000].)   Sydney Sweeney probably does have good genes, though that's not as much of an achievement as people think.  So do any number of non-white celebrities adored for their looks. Maybe the American Eagle ads were a handy opportunity to push back against resurgent racism in American Society, but I don't think the people who objected were thinking strategically.  

The idea that the masses should be swayed by "influencers" seems to span the political spectrum.  Toward the left end it has the form that we should be able to see images of People Who Look Like Us in the media.  They generally don't look like us, but we should be able to dream that plastic, focus-grouped celebrities are us, or at least are our friends and will inclusively accept us and give us a sense of belonging.  I agree that there should be variety in the types of people's bodies depicted in media, but it's not enough, and I don't think that mass media can be engineered to give everybody a sense of belonging.  Sometimes it's good not to belong.  Sometimes you have to stand alone against public condemnation and even feel like an outcast.  There are no easy solutions to really important problems; or sometimes a easy solution is painful in some way.  But American Eagle isn't standing on principle, it's just interested in making money, and will change its sales pitch as it finds necessary.

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* Don't get me started on the use of "breed" among gay men to refer to penetration.  At least not today.

Go Ask Joanne

Last month a San Francisco bookstore announced that it would no longer carry Joanne Rowling's books because of her anti-transgender campaigning.  This caused some concern, some of it disingenuous, as I argued at the time.  I didn't mention this bit, but it's an excellent example of the way people distort things, deliberately or not:

On Monday, Booksmith provided a list on its website of fantasy books similar to the “Harry Potter” series for readers who are interested in alternatives, sparking some backlash and a debate about whether bookstores should make decisions about which books their customers can access.

“So you’re going to curate your selections to only sell books by authors that you agree with politically,” one commenter wrote on social media. “Good to know. I’ll be shopping elsewhere.”

Recommending some books rather than others doesn't deny "access", nor does suggesting alternatives; bookstores and libraries do both, and uninterested customers can ignore them in favor of what they do like.  Ask a clerk or a librarian if you don't know where to look.

Which reminds me of a recent thread from Twitter/X, intended to explain why guys aren't reading books anymore. "Exhibit A", a display of current fantasy fiction:

You see, if there are any books in the store or library that don't interest them, men and boys just have to flee the place before they are swamped in girl cooties.  When called out, the poster replied "I think we need more diversity in traditional publishing today."

There has been a lot of fussing over the alleged shortage of "literary fiction" by straight white males nowadays, and I've been meaning to write something about that.  As numerous writers have pointed out, it's not even certain that there is such a shortage; the alarmists have not cited any actual data in support of their claim, and have been openly impressionistic about it, it's just how it seems / feels to them.  But I'll try to return to that issue some other time.

I'm not very interested in the kind of fantasy fiction on display in the photo above, and I've read a fair sample.  It's not because it's girly, but because I'm put off by the preachiness and New-Agey spirituality common to the subgenre, and the formulaic though professional storytelling.  I'll keep on sampling, though, because some of it made a powerful impression on me: Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor (2014) for example, and Victoria A. Goddard's The Hands of the Emperor (2018).  Both authors have published more work set in their respective universes, which I've enjoyed, but The Goblin Emperor keeps drawing me back; I've already read it three or four times.  The trouble is that there is so much being published, and fantasy isn't the only area important to me.

I've given up any reservations I might have had about the ethics of boycotting Rowling's work, though, now that she has urged a boycott herself, of the British retailer Marks and Spencer for having a transgender employee in the lingerie department.  I'm not going to try to disentangle the facts from Rowling's agenda in the case.  The point is that what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the ... goose.

And when I began writing this post I remembered something else about Rowling: she adopted the initials J. K. instead of her actual name when the first Harry Potter book was published, at her publisher's urging.  The idea was that a girl's name as author might alienate potential boy readers. Not unreasonably for an unknown debut writer, she went along with the ploy.  (Playboy magazine pressured Ursula K. Le Guin into using her initials when they published a story by her in 1968, thirty years before Harry Potter.)  Her treacherous chromosomes were never really a secret, and the series became a worldwide phenomenon.  It's significant, though, that when it came time to publish her first non-Potter novel, she chose not only another pseudonym but an unambiguously masculine one.  The first Robert Galbraith book didn't sell well until she, uh, came out as its author. Not to make too big a thing of it, but Rowling seems to have a penchant for gender disguise to mislead potential readers. Shouldn't she stop pretending that she can be a man for paraliterary purposes?  One could probably make a case that Harry Potter was the wedge that led to the invasion of commercial fantasy by women, and terrifying, emasculating book displays that cause men to give up on reading altogether.

That's My Noem, Don't Wear It Out!

Snopes is a valuable resource overall, especially since its writers lay out the evidence for the claims it examines and why it is or isn't credible.

Like any resource, however, Snopes isn't perfect.  I've noticed before that the site seems to go easy on right-wingers in high places.  That's okay, it's a reminder that you should be ready to be skeptical and critical of all media.

Today, while looking up some other topics, I found a recent post addressing a claim by Kristi Noem, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.  After South Park's latest episode, which satirized Noem's history of cosmetic enhancement, Noem told right-wing podcaster Glenn Beck, "It's so lazy to just constantly make fun of women for how they look. It's only the liberals and the extremists who do that. If they wanted to criticize my job, go ahead and do that, but clearly they can't."

Snopes writer Joe Esposito declared the quotation a "Correct Attribution," which it evidently was -- she did utter those words -- and left it there.  It would have been entirely proper, and I'd have thought an irresistible followup, to examine her claim itself.  Is it only "the liberals and the extremists" who "constantly make fun of women for how they look"? (I think it's a safe bet that by "extremists" she meant only left-wing extremists, not right-wing extremists like her boss or herself.  And I should add that the word "extremist," used as an epithet as she did there, is also lazy.)  That claim is obviously false; the right has a long history of doing it.  Just below the Noem post, Snopes provided a link to an earlier post about right-wing fantasies that Michelle Obama is too butch-looking to be a woman and must therefore be a man.  Contrariwise, South Park's previous episode had mocked Donald Trump's appearance even more harshly.  Noem was lying, and it wouldn't have been unfair for Esposito to mention that she was stretching the truth, or something comparably mild.

Noem was right, it's lazy to make fun of women's appearance, but South Park doesn't pretend to be sober, responsible discourse.  It has always, for twenty-seven seasons, been juvenile satire.  For awhile, a sect of right-wingers, known as "South Park Conservatives," managed to persuade themselves that Parker and Stone were their BFFs.  Even then it took some disciplined memory management to ignore the show's mockery of the right, but of course they managed it.  (I see from that article that the label "South Park Conservatives" was coined by Andrew Sullivan; it figures.)  I have no such illusions myself.  I figured out early on that I only agreed intermittently with their opinions.  I still enjoyed a lot of their work, and tuned it out when I didn't.  I haven't seen the Noem episode yet -- neither, she says, has Noem -- but from the summaries I've seen, it also attacked her for her policies and her actions - her job.

Trump's MAGA base, for all their religious posturing, has taken advantage of the breaking of taboos South Park spearheaded by becoming grosser than their predecessors could have been - openly, anyway. Hence the "Fuck Your Feelings" t-shirts, balanced by their indignation when someone stamps on their own feelings.  Stone and Parker have had to become even more outrageous to keep ahead of them.

I don't judge Noem or the rest of the Trump gang by their appearance, I judge them by the content of their characters - just as I judged their predecessors of both parties. It's not out of line, I should think, to notice that Trump judges women by their appearance: his female appointees are nearly all from the same mold.  That wouldn't matter if they were competent or honest, but of course they aren't.  They're chosen for their looks and their loyalty, their willingness to do what he tells them to.

My Father's House Has Many Cafes, Crafts Vendors, Etc.

I thought I'd written an update on this before, but apparently I didn't.

In late 2021, a "non-LGBTQ+ affirming" church opened in a liberal, artsy neighborhood in Durham, North Carolina.  Predictably, it attracted a lot of negative attention, but there were some notably strange things about it, which I wrote about in the blog post I just linked.  First, it occupied a space that had been held vacant for some time by a landlord who supported the venture; second, it was planned to include a cafe and crafts vendors because, the founding owner and pastor declared, "I get really cringy about church spaces that are open for like an hour on Sunday for service and then take up massive real estate and sit empty."  As I observed in that earlier post, I don't have the impression that most churches sit empty except for "like an hour on Sunday for service."  They have services on other days - Wednesdays appear to be popular - plus Bible study, fellowship groups, charity work including food pantries, and so on.  The pastor didn't seem to have any interest in such activities, or to know about them.

Every so often I would do a search for Pioneers, and nothing turned up until early last year.  According to this article, the church closed down on February 25, 2024, with a clearance (labeled "Garage") sale to dispose of its stock. I had the impression that the founders hadn't done much to build a congregation, and showed little interest in doing so.  They thought that they could run a church like a business, but didn't even do that very well: a business let alone a church would have tried harder to get along in its neighborhood and community, but the pastor did her best to dodge engagement with those who objected to Pioneers' agenda.  According to the accounts I read of its beginnings, they thought they could simply "plant" a church without testing the soil. It's surprising they lasted two years; good riddance.