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Imagine…
Since a number of us have hijacked @drbastiat‘s Grand Unifying Theory thread, I thought I’d begin a new one with this proposition:
The desire to improve human life can (and has) become a determination to perfect it. Utopianism pits the real against the ideal, and insists it is possible for the former to become the latter.
When Utopians take power, the end result of their effort appears virtually guaranteed to be unfathomable cruelty and pointless destruction.
On a small-ish scale, a reasonably effective, earnestly equitable, fair and decent college (Evergreen, for example) in which students and faculty are encouraged to think that a perfectly equitable, perfectly fair, perfectly painless educational experience is possible is a college that will devolve into mayhem, violence, the expulsion of its best and brightest minds, the abandonment of its educational mission.
On the larger scale of a nation — Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union — the same thing happens, only more spectacularly. In the end, the survivors/liberators stand around amidst the rubble and the heaps of corpses asking one another, “how on earth did we allow this to happen?”
The answer to that may lie in the seductive power of utopianism as an intellectual and imaginative, not to mention emotional, orientation. That human beings can imagine, analyze, and desire what doesn’t actually exist: This is the source of the incredible creativity that allows human beings to bring extraordinary things into being. In this, we are Godlike — God-like. And so we imagine ourselves God. Capable, that is, not merely of creating within reality but of creating reality — better reality, reality as it ought to be. Reality as perfected by us.
Once one has been persuaded that perfection is humanly possible, or even easy (natural!) and so close we can taste it, anything short of perfection is vexing, and anyone who stands in the way of progress towards it, whether by disagreeing with the definition of “perfect” or by pointing to the obstacles reality presents, will inevitably be seen as the enemy. And, really, when the end is perfection, what means of achieving it can possibly be too extreme?
Published in Religion & Philosophy
I’m a fan.
It’s a thought, but your leather men aren’t more violent than your drag queens.
Gay men get zero real life desirability points from demonstrating the capacity for violence. I don’t know that the same is true for straight men?
Straight men need to protect their mate from other males so being good at violence is attractive. Think of how incredibly common it is for males to fight for female mates in the natural world.
I’m saying the exact opposite, Zafar, and so you are confirming my point: That gay men, one way and another, have developed ways to demonstrate their non-violence to one another, and they need to do this because male violence must be accounted for. “Hello! I’m a man, and I won’t hurt you” is something straight men do as well, by the way.
But, as Henry says, straight men also signal to women that they can and will protect us.
Gay men, at the same time, are seeking to attract men who are attracted to men, which means a male body. But the visible male muscles pecs, biceps, a six pack—obviously attractive to gay men —signal a capacity for effective male violence.
When human beings wish to signal a willingness and capacity for violence, what do they do? The voice deepens, the body squares up and tries to takes up more space, the walk becomes a swagger or a determined stalk, the shoulders stiffen, the wrists form a straight line with the hand or fist. There is a reason Bruce Willis isn’t wearing a fluffy, brightly colored clothing, a candy necklace or silly, incapacitating shoes in Die Hard.
Do the opposite of all of that, and you’re signaling non-violence, like a puppy rolling on its back and exposing a pink tummy: “I’m not a threat!”
One reason that lesbian and gay male culture don’t really mesh all that well is that lesbians don’t need to signal to one another that they aren’t a threat. Women are not viewed as dangerous in an immediate, physical sense. (Think about the difference sex makes if you’re approached on a dark street by a stranger). So they don’t need to be as silly, humorous or playful—one reason lesbian nightclubs aren’t as jolly as gay male nightclubs.
Yes, I know. There are plenty of gay men who don’t swish, or use a high voice, wear silly clothes, paint their faces or flap their hands around from limp wrists. Still, these are stereotypes for a reason.
There’s a downside. Monkeypox, for instance.
This and the rest of the comment containing it (including the example of sugar-craving as a vestigial maladaptation) is something I’ve been telling people for years, in very much the same words. It’s nice to hear someone else say it so clearly.
Ohhh! That make sense in a ‘I’m here for sex not violence’ kind of way.
Btw I agree with your friend that gay males with an abusive tendency may be held in check by the thought that they’d get as good as they gave. Though also there’s a lot less stigma (if any) about just “moving on” for gay men, and that’s also a factor.
While the whole insane promiscuity and drugs thing does seem to be a con for society, leaving abusive relationships is a huge pro. It amazes me how heterosexual couples stay together and make themselves and everyone around them miserable.
exactly.
Why is what you said remotely controversial? It all makes sense. Look at dogs. Many dogs want to eat all the time because they come from wolves and wolves were always faced with the prospect of starvation. So dogs eat like they aren’t sure if they will get a meal in the next week. Sadly, humans are similar.
I hate bananas.