I don’t know if you’ve read Klaus Theweleit’s “Male Fantasies,” but it’s a pretty interesting psychoanalytic analysis of the psychology of fascism. He looks at the writings of the German Freikorps (soldiers active after World War I who laid the groundwork for Nazi ideology). His whole thesis is that fascist masculinity is constructed through violent repression of emotion, sexuality, and the feminine. He argues that fascist ideology is rooted in a defense against internal chaos and fear, especially the fear of women, fluidity, and dissolution. It’s a dense and long-winded book, but it seems relevant.
I appreciate a lot of your observations, which I was already familiar with - including from reading Paglia.
But I think you've created a false binary that excludes something that's not Left or Right: true classical liberalism (of which modern libertarianism is closely related).
In fact, imo, gay rights is most compatible with a broader, universalist liberal-humanist view of natural or individual rights. So liberalism is really the natural home for gays and lesbians, no matter the many variants or brands, whether '60s Kennedy liberalism, today represented perhaps best by Alan Dershowitz and Jonathan Turley; or the 21st century liberalism represented by a rainbow spectrum of maverick libertarian thinkers, from Hayek's epistemic modesty to Rothbard and Rand's constructivist rationalism and notably including the psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, Paglia herself, Milton and David Friedman, and several gay libertarian thinkers, such as Cato Institute's David Boaz or philosopher John Hospers, the first Lib Party presidential candidate.
I say this as perhaps the first person in America to write a newspaper column, back around 1977, advocating legalization of gay/lesbian marriage, anticipating the great Andrew Sullivan's leadership in the 1990s via Virtually Normal.
P.S. Did you really mean to suggest that Paglia's view and persuasive argument involves God? Her book advocates naturalism, not supernaturalism - though I don't know her religious views, but I get the sense she's an atheist who appreciates the rich cultural legacy of religion, including Catholicism.
In case it's not clear above, something I should make explicit is my assumption and understanding that both Left and Right embrace many illiberal ideas/positions and authoritarian tendencies.
I get the impression that your essay perhaps too facilely makes the assumption equating liberalism and gay rights with progressivism and the Left - which distorts and I think undermines your overall insightful themes.
While many recognize the illiberal and unlibertarian aspects of Right-coded nationalism and populism, I get the impression that far fewer recognize the profound differences and tension between Leftism/progressivism and true liberalism. Sadly, over the past generation, many progressive-Left Democrats seem blind to the authoritarian aspects of their ideology, while simultaneously hounding and vilifying many actual Democratic liberals (like Dershowitz and Turley, and perhaps also Paglia, who years ago called herself a "libertarian Democrat) to the extent that many have been pushed out of the Democratic Party. That's not only bad for the Dems, the world's oldest continuing political party, but bad for America and bad for the world.
P.S. I wish more people would read and think more widely, not just publications they already agree with, which reinforce their cracked-mirror views of the world. Most recently, I've found both Matt Ridley and Steven Pinker to be brilliant and mind-blowing in many of their books, which challenge many common and elite but false assumptions about history, science, progress, etc. - most notably Ridley's The Rational Optimist and Pinker's Enlightenment Now. Check them out!
I hear what you’re saying. I think gay rights fits well into a libertarian framework. Though I still think there is an intrinsic link between certain iterations of homosexual experience and right-wing authoritarianism. Personally I am drawn to neither libertarianism nor authoritarianism. I think Chesterton and Dorothy Day had more compelling visions. But that’s another story.
I lean toward agreeing with you about the fascinations and attractions of some gay men for masculinity and machismo, which then imo is perverted into the type of extremist and even cartoonish exaggeration of dominance and cult of the leader in all dictatorships, from Lenin and Stalin to Hitler and Mussolini up to Mao and on and on, sadly and tragically.
But I think they're making a false equation, because I don't think masculinity per se is toxic or authoritarian.
P.S. Although I've only read quotes from his writings and none of his books, I have a positive perception of Chesterton, who I view as a sort of religious conservative with genuine maturity and wisdom about the tacit and largely unseen foundations of society and culture, and how they are relatively resistant to any abstract ideology or philosophy - and thus perhaps sort of have "antibodies" to extremism, and thus deserve respect for their communitarian ideals, perhaps similar to the peaceful Shire of the Hobbits in Chesterton's British contemporary, Tolkien.
I've recently been thinking a lot (albeit still half-baked thoughts) about the impulse for conservatism amongst some gay men as the necessary correlate to female sexuality that is missing as the restraining component of male sexuality and natural harmony between the sexes. A homofascist impulse seems to bypass the pragmatism of politic altogether and accelerates solely toward the metaphysical, fetishistic component.
I actually don't keep up with much of what Milo is doing, but from what I can always tell, he seems more concerned with the aesthetic element. He's a provocateur and an artist more than a political thinker, at least from my perspective. The difference in the resurgence of homofascism from the likes of Röhm or Mishima is the veil of ironic detachment that seems unavoidable these days. Not to suggest that Milo doesn't actually believe in what he is saying, but the force that drives him seems to embody the archetype of the trickster, and in this way manages to tap into the symbolic power of the metaphysical drive towards erotic fascism but without ever having to organise or attempt real politics. It's what makes me sceptical that the return of the homofascist aesthetic will ever result in much, although I do think the instinct towards it is an integral part of homosexuality that is worth investigating.
You should hang out with me and my friends next time you're in London, they're all gay autists...
I don’t know if you’ve read Klaus Theweleit’s “Male Fantasies,” but it’s a pretty interesting psychoanalytic analysis of the psychology of fascism. He looks at the writings of the German Freikorps (soldiers active after World War I who laid the groundwork for Nazi ideology). His whole thesis is that fascist masculinity is constructed through violent repression of emotion, sexuality, and the feminine. He argues that fascist ideology is rooted in a defense against internal chaos and fear, especially the fear of women, fluidity, and dissolution. It’s a dense and long-winded book, but it seems relevant.
I have not, but I will certainly check it out! I felt it necessary to highlight the misogynistic bent of some iterations of gay male culture.
I appreciate a lot of your observations, which I was already familiar with - including from reading Paglia.
But I think you've created a false binary that excludes something that's not Left or Right: true classical liberalism (of which modern libertarianism is closely related).
In fact, imo, gay rights is most compatible with a broader, universalist liberal-humanist view of natural or individual rights. So liberalism is really the natural home for gays and lesbians, no matter the many variants or brands, whether '60s Kennedy liberalism, today represented perhaps best by Alan Dershowitz and Jonathan Turley; or the 21st century liberalism represented by a rainbow spectrum of maverick libertarian thinkers, from Hayek's epistemic modesty to Rothbard and Rand's constructivist rationalism and notably including the psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, Paglia herself, Milton and David Friedman, and several gay libertarian thinkers, such as Cato Institute's David Boaz or philosopher John Hospers, the first Lib Party presidential candidate.
I say this as perhaps the first person in America to write a newspaper column, back around 1977, advocating legalization of gay/lesbian marriage, anticipating the great Andrew Sullivan's leadership in the 1990s via Virtually Normal.
P.S. Did you really mean to suggest that Paglia's view and persuasive argument involves God? Her book advocates naturalism, not supernaturalism - though I don't know her religious views, but I get the sense she's an atheist who appreciates the rich cultural legacy of religion, including Catholicism.
In case it's not clear above, something I should make explicit is my assumption and understanding that both Left and Right embrace many illiberal ideas/positions and authoritarian tendencies.
I get the impression that your essay perhaps too facilely makes the assumption equating liberalism and gay rights with progressivism and the Left - which distorts and I think undermines your overall insightful themes.
While many recognize the illiberal and unlibertarian aspects of Right-coded nationalism and populism, I get the impression that far fewer recognize the profound differences and tension between Leftism/progressivism and true liberalism. Sadly, over the past generation, many progressive-Left Democrats seem blind to the authoritarian aspects of their ideology, while simultaneously hounding and vilifying many actual Democratic liberals (like Dershowitz and Turley, and perhaps also Paglia, who years ago called herself a "libertarian Democrat) to the extent that many have been pushed out of the Democratic Party. That's not only bad for the Dems, the world's oldest continuing political party, but bad for America and bad for the world.
P.S. I wish more people would read and think more widely, not just publications they already agree with, which reinforce their cracked-mirror views of the world. Most recently, I've found both Matt Ridley and Steven Pinker to be brilliant and mind-blowing in many of their books, which challenge many common and elite but false assumptions about history, science, progress, etc. - most notably Ridley's The Rational Optimist and Pinker's Enlightenment Now. Check them out!
I hear what you’re saying. I think gay rights fits well into a libertarian framework. Though I still think there is an intrinsic link between certain iterations of homosexual experience and right-wing authoritarianism. Personally I am drawn to neither libertarianism nor authoritarianism. I think Chesterton and Dorothy Day had more compelling visions. But that’s another story.
Thanks.
I lean toward agreeing with you about the fascinations and attractions of some gay men for masculinity and machismo, which then imo is perverted into the type of extremist and even cartoonish exaggeration of dominance and cult of the leader in all dictatorships, from Lenin and Stalin to Hitler and Mussolini up to Mao and on and on, sadly and tragically.
But I think they're making a false equation, because I don't think masculinity per se is toxic or authoritarian.
P.S. Although I've only read quotes from his writings and none of his books, I have a positive perception of Chesterton, who I view as a sort of religious conservative with genuine maturity and wisdom about the tacit and largely unseen foundations of society and culture, and how they are relatively resistant to any abstract ideology or philosophy - and thus perhaps sort of have "antibodies" to extremism, and thus deserve respect for their communitarian ideals, perhaps similar to the peaceful Shire of the Hobbits in Chesterton's British contemporary, Tolkien.
Very interesting insights. As an evangelical, who wants to understand and love more, this is very useful.
I've recently been thinking a lot (albeit still half-baked thoughts) about the impulse for conservatism amongst some gay men as the necessary correlate to female sexuality that is missing as the restraining component of male sexuality and natural harmony between the sexes. A homofascist impulse seems to bypass the pragmatism of politic altogether and accelerates solely toward the metaphysical, fetishistic component.
I actually don't keep up with much of what Milo is doing, but from what I can always tell, he seems more concerned with the aesthetic element. He's a provocateur and an artist more than a political thinker, at least from my perspective. The difference in the resurgence of homofascism from the likes of Röhm or Mishima is the veil of ironic detachment that seems unavoidable these days. Not to suggest that Milo doesn't actually believe in what he is saying, but the force that drives him seems to embody the archetype of the trickster, and in this way manages to tap into the symbolic power of the metaphysical drive towards erotic fascism but without ever having to organise or attempt real politics. It's what makes me sceptical that the return of the homofascist aesthetic will ever result in much, although I do think the instinct towards it is an integral part of homosexuality that is worth investigating.
You should hang out with me and my friends next time you're in London, they're all gay autists...