Yo, Leftish Atheists — Cool It for a Bit: Organizing Against Trumpism

“Be diligent in the study of Torah, and know how to answer an Epicurean.”

—   Rabbi Elazar, Pirkei Avot (Sayings of the Hebrew Fathers)

And an Epicurean scientific materialist should know how, and when not to, answer a rabbi.

—   Rich Erlich

The context here is the rise of Trumpism in the United States, following a trend toward right-wing, authoritarian movements in Europe and elsewhere. My fear is the rise of an articulate successor to US President Donald J. Trump, a successor who is truly charismatic and can lead a genuine Mass Movement; my hope is that decent people can soon get a broad coalition to oppose such a movement, and defeat it.

Given that most Americans, indeed, most adult human beings, follow some sort of faith; given that most adult Americans strongly oppose “hate speech” but also dislike “political correctness”; given that “social justice warrior” has gone from a mildly hyperbolic compliment to a rebuke — given such fairly hard facts, I want to at least talk at some of my comrades on the Left and ask them, for a while, to tone down their language — and, on some subjects, for a bit, to shut up. 

Such a request is, let’s say, a problem for me as a recovering academic and Life Member of the ACLU.

Such a request will be problematic for the spiritual descendants of Abolitionists and war resisters and, at a great distance, the Prophets of old: people in the US Puritan tradition, but without the black clothing, big buckles, and (usually) God. 

So I’m going to go at this issue carefully and at a long length for one of my blog posts, making a few passes at the topic.

Pass 1: The story goes that the great scholar and scientist Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace, once explained to the Emperor Napoleon his  (Laplace's) theory for the origin of the solar system. The Emperor complained that Laplace had described creation without ever mentioning God, to which Laplace responded (in the story), "Sire, I do not need that hypothesis."

And that (without the "Sire") is the proper scientific response. Whether or not God exists is not testable, but it is an inelegant, unparsimonious, and a clear violation of "Occam's Razor" to introduce so large an element as God into an argument unless necessary — really, really necessary.

            When God might be useful, is for a bit later. For now, let’s just stick with the Laplace principle. Any sentence beginning “Science proves” is bullshit-ish ‘because “Science” is too abstract to prove much, and the scientific method doesn’t exactly give final proofs of anything for what we experience as the real world. It’s the discipline of theology, not any of the sciences, that studies God; so don’t say “Science proves there is no God” or get into such arguments at all. What various sciences and their pre-scientific precursors have done over the last couple or so centuries is make God increasingly irrelevant for explanation of natural phenomena. And for big questions like free will and “Why is there anything rather than nothing?” — the God hypothesis isn’t very useful. (Strict Calvinists strongly believe in God, not necessarily free will. That God willed the universe to be as opposed to not be, just puts the mystery one step back: "And why would God necessarily prefer Being to Non-Being"? Plus, the description in Genesis is the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos, without explaining out of what Nothingness the Chaos arose.)

            So, on scientific grounds, don’t argue religion: “I don’t need that hypothesis” is all you need to say. And if religious sorts press the issue, they are the problem, not you.

Pass 2: Leftish Faith

Note: If you want a more respectable source than a retired English professor’s blog, see Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2015) on Natural Rights, and some of Mr. Harari’s follow-up writing.

            In 1976. for the US Bicentennial Celebration at Miami University (Oxford, Ohio), I was asked to speak on … well something relevant. At the speech, I looked out at an audience far larger than I’d expected — at least one Speech teacher had required attendance — and started out with a thoroughly-rehearsed ad lib on how I was from Chicago and Chicagoans rejected the elitist concept that one had to be an expert to talk usefully on a subject, “OR, Chicagoans rarely let our ignorance get in the way of shooting off our mouths. And tonight I’m going to shoot my mouth off on the Declaration of Independence as a revolutionary document, far more revolutionary than most of us recognize.”

            And I proceeded to talk about something I did know about: from around Shakespeare’s time the Homily — a canned sermon — on Obedience to Authority and “An Exhortation concerning good Order, and obedience to Rulers and Magistrates.” 

            On the basis of Holy Scripture and Natural Law, the writers of the Homilies were convinced that

Almighty God has created and appointed all things in heaven and on earth and all about, in a most excellent and perfect order. In heaven, he has appointed distinct and several orders and states of Archangels and Angels. In earth he has assigned and appointed Kings, Princes, with other governors under them, in all good and necessary order. […]  The sun, moon, stars, rainbow, thunder, lightning, clouds, and all the birds of the air, keep their order. The earth, trees, seeds, plants, herbs, corn, grass, and all manner of beasts keep themselves in order […].

Human beings also have all parts both within and without, like soul, heart, mind, memory, understanding, reason, speech, with all and singular corporal members of our body in a profitable, necessary, and pleasant order: every degree of people in their vocation, calling and office, is appointed to them their duty and order: some are in high degree, some in low, some Kings and Princes, some inferiors and subjects, priests, and layfolk, masters and servants, fathers, and children, husbands and wives, rich and poor, and everyone needs the other, so that in all things God, in good order, is lauded and praised, without which no house, city or commonwealth can continue, endure or last. For where there is no right order, there reigns abuse, carnal liberty, enormity, sin and Babylonian confusion.

Take away Kings Princes, Rulers, Magistrates, Judges, and such estates of God's good order, and no one shall ride or go by the highway un-robbed, no one shall sleep in their own house or bed un-killed, no one shall keep their spouse, children, and possession in quietness, all things shall be in-common, and there must needs follow all kinds of mischief, and utter destruction of souls, bodies, goods and social well-being. But blessed be God, that we in this realm of England, feel not the horrible calamities, miseries, and wretchedness, which all they undoubtedly feel and suffer, who lack this godly order: and praised be God, that we know the great excellent benefit of God shown towards us in this behalf, God has sent us his high gift, our most dear Sovereign Lord the King, with a godly, wise and honourable counsel, with other superiors and inferiors, in a beautiful and godly order.

            I have no doubt that somewhere in the back of a church or two, some rebellious soul was mouthing silently the subversive old rime, from John Ball, and the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, “When Adam delved and Eva span, / Who was then the gentleman?” I.e., when Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden to earn their livings by toil like digging and spinning — “From the beginning all men by nature were created alike, and our bondage or servitude,” serfdom and exploitation, “came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men” (“naughty” was a much more powerful word back then). Still, the orthodox, non-heretical, traditional, obvious view was that the universe was a Great Chain of Being, running from the hand or footstool of God down through the orders of the angels to the stars and planets, and then humans in our order, and down through plants and animals to the minerals and down to your basic rock. Everything in its order, held together by the love of God for all and the love of each conscious creature for those above and below, and our sense of different obligations to those above and below.

            This “most excellent and perfect order” had been obvious among the educated (and otherwise privileged) since the time of Aristotle. 

            Human hierarchy was part of this “godly order”; human love and obligation was natural.

            It’s a beautiful and useful view, especially from the top. From the bottom … well looking up, the human part might look more like a multistory outhouse, if one were so privileged as to own an outhouse. And if you lost faith in that “godly order,” well you were “an heretic,” and if you acted or even spoke aloud that loss of faith, you were open to a charge of treason and finding yourself, if male, hanged, drawn, and quartered, or, if female, burned alive. So if there were any doubts, most people probably kept them quiet, and they were lost to history; and this orthodox view of hierarchical society came down to the time of the American Revolution, and parts last to this day.

            Seriously.

            If you play Twenty Questions, you begin with “Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral?,” and in that order because, ultimately, that is the order in the Great Chain of Being. If you talk of “higher” and “lower” animals, higher and lower in terms of what? Possibly in terms of a simplistic idea of evolution, more likely in terms of the Great Chain of Being and the possibility of drawing a firm line and making radical distinction between humans as “the paragon of animals” and “a little lower than the angels” — and the rest, many of whom you want someone to kill and skin and cook or pluck and cook and feed you, without your feeling guilt.

            Against such well-established doctrine, it’s difficult to argue, and Thomas Jefferson and the guys didn’t bother. Instead, in the subversive tradition of John Ball, they offer a competing creation myth, if not for the universe, then for human society — and like John Ball find justification for rebellion against “the unjust oppression of naughty men.”

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Now earlier I mentioned that there are times when God can get useful … and this one is a biggy, with that bit about being created equal and created endowed by our Creator “with certain unalienable Rights.” That requires some long leaps of faith. First, that a Creator-God exists, that that God created us and somehow cares about us, and that that God created us equal in some sense, and “with certain unalienable rights.” But get rid of a Creator, and then what? If we have rights, where do they come from? And if we’re equal, equal in what sense? 

            Believing in a Creator is a leap of Faith; that the Creator would care about us, takes the jump into the Absurd — but that absent that Creator that we have some sort of rights from … Nature? That’s also a leap into the absurd, and the idea that we’re equal is just, to put it politely, “counterfactual,” or “ingenious” in a very negative sense of the word.

            Personally, I believe in human rights, and believe strongly. But that’s belief, an act of faith. If you also believe in human rights, that far you too are a person of faith. That makes you no worse than those who believe in the Great Chain of Being, and in some practical ways probably a good deal better; but your belief in equality is built on the same ontological sand pile as their belief in hierarchy. 

            You probably also believe in the American Republic and quite likely the American Nation, which Harari points out are imagined or “imaginary communities”; and you probably believe in corporations — “fictive persons” — and the value of money, including paper money that has just about no value outside the belief that such fancy paper has value. 

            So don’t get snarky with God-believers, with “How can you believe …?” Not if you believe in other people’s belief in money enough to take paper for goods of actual value — and not if you believe in your nation enough to say you’d die for it.

Pass 3

            I spent some forty years teaching and doing scholarship, and before that I did a little bit of science; so let’s say I’m fond of truth and that I rather compulsively try to lay truth upon people. There are times, though, when one can assert one’s truth quickly and then shut up, or just avoid various topics of conversation. 

            Specifically here, if you want people to face courageously the human condition and throw away their crutches of ridiculous beliefs — okay, good; but please face up to what you are asking, and please note that dropping their faith and facing the universe without it, may exact a price some highly useful potential allies are unwilling to pay. 

            3.A

            In African Genesis(1961), Robert Ardrey recounts a theory from the early 1940s: The Illusion of Central Position. According to the theory, this illusion "is the birthright of every human baby." A baby boy enters the world and "Bright objects appear for his amusement, bottles and breasts for his comfort. His groping consciousness finds no reason at all to doubt the world's consecration to his needs and purposes. His Illusion of Central Position is perfect" (African Genesis144; ch. 6). With maturity, however, the illusion is undercut and the child and then the man comes to a truer perception of his place in the scheme of things.

Nonetheless the theory grants that should a man ever attain a state of total maturity — ever come to see himself, in other words, in perfect mathematical relationship to the tide of tumultuous life which has risen upon the earth and in which we represent but a single swell; and furthermore come to see our earth as but one opportunity for life among uncounted millions in our galaxy alone, and our galaxy as but one statistical improbability, nothing more, in the silent mathematics of all things—should a man, in sum, ever achieve the final, total, truthful Disillusionment of Central Position, then in all likelihood he would no longer keep going but would simply lie down, wherever he happened to be, and with a long-drawn sigh return to the oblivion from which he came. (145; ch. 6)

And we can add today that our universe may be only one among several or many or an infinite number of universes, and that whether our universe peters out through entropy or reduces to nothingness in The Big Crunch, our universe is doomed; so even if a human being gained galactic glory, that, too, would be, in terms of the Big Picture, fleeting. Definitely, totally fleeting, and trivial. 

            Similarly, in The Big Picture, for the value of the human species, let alone any individual human. 

            3.B

            In the Book of Ecclesiastes, Koheleth, the Preacher, decides, "[…] as regards men, to dissociate them [from] the divine beings and to face the fact that they are beasts. For […] the fate of man and the fate of beast [are] one and the same fate: as the one dies so dies the other, and both have the same lifebreath; man has no superiority over beast, since both amount to nothing. Both go to the same place; both came from dust and both return to dust. Who knows if a man's lifebreath does rise upward and if a beast's breath does sink down into the earth?" (Tanakh 1985; cf. KJV 2000: 3.18-21). That last question is rhetorical: no soul in ancient Jewish theory — that was an Egyptian and Greek idea — but “lifebreath,” and the lifebreath animating human beings and what we consider the “lower” animals is the same: not doggy heaven but oblivion or Sheol: “the grave” or “pit,” with maybe a kind of amorphous semi-existence. And taking such a hard-nose, hard-ass, hard-look view at the world, Koheleth doesn’t lie down and die but cries out on life’s “Emptiness, emptiness! All is emptiness!” And chasing after the wind (Eccl. 1). 

            And such an analysis can be pushed beyond Existential despair and into some nasty conclusions in ethics.  

3.C

You want to put that Epicurean on steroids and get a truly rigorous materialism? Well, the Marquis de Sade is far out of date in his science and was far, far out of his mind — psychopathic serial killer and all — but he was strong on intellectual daring and pushing an idea to its conclusions. "What we call the end of the living animal," Sade notes in a very long philosophic pause from a pornographic novel, what we call death and killing of a human or other animal (or plant) is not "a true finis" — end, goal — "but a simple transformation, a transmutation of matter, what every modern philosopher acknowledges as one of Nature's fundamental laws" ("Manners" section of " Yet Another Effort Frenchmen, If You Would Become [Real] Republicans" 1795). Modernizing the argument: Kill someone, bury the corpse, let it rot, dig it up, and weigh it, and the biomass of the human remains, and the feeding putrefactive bacteria, maggots and such will show no significant loss of weight. If you feel that a living human being is superior to a mass of putrefactive bacteria (and I certainly hope you do), how is that feeling any more than the product of our "small human vanities," species chauvinism, and "stupid notions of pride"?

            Which gets us back to human rights and, more deeply, human value. If you believe in human value, you believe in human value. 

            If God exists and cares one way or another about a recent species on an unremarkable planet in a rather banal galaxy, and if that care is love for what in some sense He/She/It has created and created in some sense in His/Her/Its image — yeah, we humans have value. Or you can skip the mystic stuff and just believe without a whole lot of evidence that in a huge universe and maybe multiverse not just our species but individual humans have some sort of significant value.

So: A broad alliance is necessary to resist what looks like a resurgence of fascistic rule, maybe moves toward outright fascism; and necessary for that alliance — parallel to the entry into US politics of Vietnam Veterans Against the War by the US in Vietnam — necessary for that alliance will be religious folk, and the more Evangelical the better. And so for good, Machiavellian, pragmatic reasons, people of faith should be cultivated, not pushed away. And, I hope I have shown, there are considerations that should make it possible for sensible atheists and agnostics to work with faith folk honestly, without hypocrisy. 

            It just takes a little humility.

            “Know how to answer an Epicurean [materialist],” Rabbi; and responsible Leftist materialists should know how to talk to rabbis and other people of faith enough to get them to resist Trumpism, and to plan how to do it.

“Solidarity Forever!”, people; or at least until the current crises in the American Republic have settled down.

Genetics, Gays, Rick Perry, & the Tao of DALLAS BUYERS CLUB's "Rayon" (5 July 2014)

"I may have the genetic coding that I’m inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that - and I look at the homosexual issue the same way." — Gov. Rick Perry, 11 June 2014

"Rale is... the right thing to do, [young Orry says,] like learning things at school, or like a river following its course […]." "Tao?" asked Falk; but Orry had never heard of the Old Canon of Man. — City of Illusions (1967)

              I'd better start out with a couple or three of what we used to call CAUTIONs and which may be better known nowadays as "Trigger Warnings."

            First in importance, probably, if not in the order in the blog, I'll caution you(se) that I have one and only one absolute language taboo: I won't pronounce the name of God. I thought I should have a taboo, and that is a traditional one. Otherwise, I try to be ethical and not hurt people unnecessarily and even try to be prudent enough to try to avoid even offending people unnecessarily — but that's ethics and commonsense; I've named my one taboo and outside of that I'll use the words I think decorous for getting the job done, including "B*d Words" (although I'll sometimes nod in the direction of the taboo with an asterisk replacing a letter, and I'll concede upon request the arrogance of my claiming an absolute right to make word choices).

            Second, this blog will be even less linear than usual, and I know my circuitous style pisses some people off (or "p*sses," for adherents of that taboo).

            Third, I'm going to start off on my labyrinthine ways with kind of sort of a defense of Texas Governor Rick Perry's remark, quoted above, relating homosexuality to alcoholism.

            To begin with, on the Perry part, Mr. Perry does seem to be somewhat stupid, and intelligence appears to be largely genetic; so we shouldn't particularly praise people for being smart nor condemn others for, let's phrase it, not being smart. The characterological question is what people do with their brains. In that analysis, Daniel Keyes's Charlie Gordon in "Flowers for Algernon" is admirable when he's intellectually defective because what he has, brainwise, he uses. The semi-literate Charlie tries to think things through, and, all in all, he does a pretty good job. If Molly Ivins and some of her fellow Texans (and others) were correct in their analysis of George W. Bush — not stupid but "intellectually lazy, incurious, ill-read" — then G. W. Bush is culpable, but not someone like Charlie Gordon and only partially Rick Perry.

            Now by such logic we shouldn't much praise people for natural beauty but admire those who beautify themselves with diet, exercise, cosmetics, surgery, drugs, and such — so I'm not going to push this point too hard. But we should allow that Perry isn't a deep intellectual and cut him a bit of slack when he's operating in one of the most difficult areas of American politics.

            So, I will attempt to extricate Mr. Perry from his thoughts and comments, which I can do far more easily than he can since I'm not politician, I'm not running for anything, and I'm an old curmudgeon who can say shit he can't.

            The current mainstream line is that homosexuality is largely genetic and, usually stated far from any comments on sexuality, it is standard teaching that alcoholism is largely genetic. It's widely held that one is homosexual by nature and that one may become an alcoholic if one is genetically susceptible to alcoholism and goes on to consume ethyl alcohol, and then consumes it to excess. In the immediate background here is the idea of genotype: one's complement of traits, and phenotype: how those traits get expressed. Also in the immediate background is the doctrine that most of us apply as a practical matter that people have free will and can, within limits, make significant choices.

            As Mr. Perry says, people may have "the genetic coding" to incline them to alcoholism, but that doesn't necessarily mean they become alcoholics. They may be fortunate enough to be born in one of the rare cultures in which booze is not the drug of choice, cultures in which they might become responsible users of hashish or peyote or coca leaves or a mild opiate. Or they may be born in our culture into a social context where drunkenness is strongly frowned upon and learn how to drink moderately — or they may choose to abstain from alcohol entirely (as the AA people would advise).

            People can be genetically primed to become alcoholics and for a number of reasons not exhibit the behavior (or overcome it), and we usually praise them for not becoming alcoholics and pretty much never condemn them for not fulfilling their nature.

            Genotype is only partly what determines phenotype.

            Similarly, one could be genetically primed (and imprinted or whatever) such that by a very young age you are not attracted to the sex genetically other than yours but to those of your own sex and gender. Crassly put, a genetically XX female person can be attracted to other XX female people, or XY males to XY, with most of the direction of attraction established prior to adolescence or even "the age of reason" (say, seven years old).

            The question is then what one does with the attraction — one's sexual orientation — and a homosexual person could choose to do without a sex life even as some heterosexuals have done.

            But very, very, very few people choose to do without a sex life, and for good and ill people in our culture express who they are by their sexual choices even more than by their choice of drugs or abstinence from drugs.

            Which gets to the objections put to Mr. Perry as to when such choices are anybody's bloody business.

            There are people who can be pretty confident that their genetic makeup and upbringing combine to make them strongly susceptible to alcoholism: for sure people whose parents were both alcoholics, and whose extended family and peers blatantly tended toward drunks. There is a good chance that such people will become alcoholics if they use alcohol, and that alcoholism, the expressed disease, will cause social problems. And some of those problems can be serious: spouse and child abuse, drunk driving, assaults, and worse; some people can be exceedingly mean drunks.

            As of now, most of us would not have the State "intervene" with potential alcoholics, and our experience with culture-wide Prohibition of alcohol was very bad. But we do want strong social pressure on potential alcoholics to lay off the booze, and many of us would even endorse sobriety as a condition of probation for an alcoholic with a record of DUI.

            And that "strong social pressure" can include disapproval and stigmatization, plus nagging and "interventions" even before there is any criminal behavior or serious anti-social fuck-ups.
            Now social condemnation of homosexuals — plus stigmatization, discrimination, and threat of criminal penalties up to burning at the stake (at least for male "sodomites)" — have been part or occasional parts of Western civilization since Moses and, later, Caesar Augustus. Such policies are pernicious and wicked, but defensible.

            Consider George Orwell's comment in "Politics and the English Language" that in his time, 1946: "[…] political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties."

            Similarly, or similarly enough when I'm dealing seriously with the homosexuality/alcohol analogy — similarly, condemnation of homosexuality can be defended coherently but only by arguments too theological or Machiavellian for most Americans to deal with.

            "The Abominations in Leviticus" probably got there to preserve Israel's holiness and Mary Douglas asserts plausibly "that holiness is exemplified by completeness. Holiness requires that individuals shall conform to the class to which they belong. And holiness requires that different classes of things shall not be confused." Homosexuality is sexcrime in Leviticus most directly because it confuses male and female in the sex act, and Israel and "the nations," specifically those gentile nations that were less hung up on heterosexuality than the Jews, and/or whose major concern for status for a guy was not the sex of the sex-partner but more on whether he was the fuckor or the fuckee.

            Anyway, Douglas can make sense of many of the prohibitions in the Biblical Book of Leviticus in terms of maintenance of categories, and as much as they are in Leviticus by conscious, human choice, that's probably how they got there. The sexual prohibitions, however, also make excellent sense as part of a pronatalist program, and fit in with such programs outside of the Abrahamic religions and, indeed, religion entirely. The logic is simple: most human beings want sex; if you want lots of people for military and economic reasons, do all you can to ensure that their sex acts are likely to lead to reproduction and raising kids until those kids are old enough for military and/or economic service (and/or more reproduction).

            With Earth's human population at over seven billion and climbing, pronatalism is a bad idea, but that's irrelevant if you accept as an "undisputed maxim in government, ‘That people are the riches of a nation,’" or if you accept "Be fruitful and multiply" as an absolute, enduring obligation — or if you accept Leviticus as part of a Bible that "is without error or fault in all its teaching" and that "the autographic text of Scripture, ... in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy."

            Now add here some pieces of Christian doctrine on salvation and damnation and you get that homosexual acts put homosexuals in risk of damnation, and open and notorious gayness tempts others to abomination, hence to damnation: cf. condemnation of the Serpent in Eden in Genesis, and the fate of heretics, also logically killed horribly as "both due vengeance to themselves, / And wholesome terror to posterity," as the old play of Gorboduc says should be done with mere traitors to a kingdom and not those far more dangerously putting at risk immortal souls of infinite value.

            More, "Choose life" in Biblical terms means choosing life under God's Law, and choosing otherwise can be deadly to oneself and to the community. Indeed, sodomy puts the whole community — God's new Chosen, let's say, America — at risk of destruction like unto that of Gomorrah and, way more to the point, Sodom.

            Sooo … so if Rick Perry had the wit and education to make the argument — and any popular venue allowed him the time to make it — and if he didn't want to be elected US President, he could argue that private sex lives have public meaning, that "the personal is the political" with a (divine) vengeance, and that homosexuality is far more a matter for social, political, and legal consideration than alcoholism.

            Indeed, back in the bad old days of that really Old Time Puritan Religion, he could start from a hard-ass Calvinist view and celebrate finding homosexuality largely genetic and pretty much irresistible: God would make those he's eternally hated gay "in thought, word, and deed," and therefore obviously deserving of the damnation he has in store for them anyway.

            But the hard-ass Calvinist view raises the question of why a society should bother to suppress vice (to keep the Elect from being annoyed, as a practical matter) — and, more important here, Rick Perry is obviously not a hard-assed Calvinist but one of those unconflicted believers in free will. In Perry's Christian-inflected view: even as those genetically predisposed to alcoholism can choose not to drink booze, even so those genetically gay can choose to refrain from homosex (or any sex). And homosexuals should so refrain if they don't want to be damned or risk divine vengeance on America. And gays should definitely stay closeted and not tempt the temptable, annoy the Elect, and make it obvious that we American Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God deserve divine wrath for not suppressing homosexuality.

            Now in American culture, anyway, one's choice of drugs is fairly important for who one is, and total abstinence more so, especially among subcultures where heavy drinking is the norm. Which gets us to a useful analogy between alcohol use and homosexual acts — Prohibition of either is very stupid and dangerous — and the question of whether those who'd compare the two would have a right or obligation to use more moderate means to discourage both.

            My answer for society is that we're endangering human civilization in encouraging births and, if anything, we ought to be encouraging people to focus their sex lives on sex that is not reproductive: contraception to start with, but much of the Xtube gamut as well.

            Away from law and public policy, however, I'm more ambivalent.

            I was intellectually brung up, in part, in the biological sciences, and I'm convinced that between genetics and environment ("nature and nurture") there's not a whole lot of space for the exercise of free will. On the other hand, I was also brought up intellectually when Existentialism was in fashion, and I would like to believe that "Existence precedes essence" and that — even given a shitload of "facticity" — we define who we are by what we choose to do, or refrain from doing.

            But philosophical thought isn't really my strong suit, and I'll resolve this issue as much as I can starting from a concrete scene in a movie.

            The scene is from DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, the one with Jared Leto's character Rayon meeting with Rayon's father.

            It's a brilliant scene in all ways I could notice, including makeup, hairstyling, and costuming. It's the first time we see Rayon — apparently an XY person — in men's clothing, and in men's clothing he's in drag. And that is the point, and one that leads to a further point: Rayon in men's clothing is a violation of what Orry calls "Rale" in Ursula K. Le Guin's City of Illusions and which the older man Falk understands as Tao (from the Tao Te Ching). The male costuming on Rayon isn't just sartorially off but violates the Tao of Rayon, the personal being of the character.

            Well, duh, you might say.

            Well, you might — you got this far in this blog post — but Rick Perry and a lot of other Americans might find that assessment weird, or wicked.

            Rayon's sex life, or Jared Leto's or yours or mine, is none of their business; Rayon's public presentation of self however — that's something the neighbors and friends and family can have opinions on and comment on.

            Rayon comes across right in female clothing and somehow off in male. Unsolicited, I'll make that comment, and, since Rayon is fictional, we can let it go with my expressing my opinion that s/he should stick to women's clothing.

            Meeting his father in his father's office, Rayon notes that he "didn't make the cut" for a photograph (of his father's other children?), and his father says, "You've made that choice yourself." Rayon responds, "It wasn't a choice, Dad."

            Okay, Rayon's sexuality wasn't a choice: he could form one or more homoerotic relationships — I recall him in only one in the film — or he could do without sex and deny himself as a sexual being. Still, how he dresses both is and is not a choice. Rayon can dress as a male obviously: we see him that way in this scene, and it's mentioned in the dialog. But, again, that's a prudent and courteous decision for him, but wrong; and this is undoubtedly the case with a thousands of other transvestites and, more so, transsexuals.

            In other cases, though, I am going to come down on the side of free will, choice, and "the personal is the political (in complex ways)."

            As that Xtube (et X-al.) variety of uploaded variations makes clear, there are lots of ways people present themselves for the public, and however genetic gayness may be, the public presentation part is strongly affected by the social milieu, and in the final steps leading from genome to behavior, chosen.

            As long ago as the 1960s, in, I think On Aggression, Konrad Lorenz pointed out that even in terms of stereotypes, there are at least two for gays: the painted youth in a Weimar cabaret — Lorenz was born in 1903 — and Achilles. Achilles's sexuality was complex, but it's the stereotypes that count here: the "f*ggot" in the cabaret and the super-masculine macho asshole, and/or epic hero.

            Does a gay male have the right to present himself at those extremes? Well, of course. I'm a life member of the ACLU, and I'll defend to the point of significant inconvenience pretty much all forms of expression. But that which is legally done or even ethically done is not necessarily worthily done.

            And here I'll return (jerkily in terms of essay construction) to the concrete, and personal.

            Sometime in high school in Chicago, I did something unworthy and unwise but instructive. Talking with a small group of friends I sniffed and dismissed a guy out of earshot with, "TNSJ," a term I'd recently learned. Given a quizzical look, I replied "Typical North-Side Jew," with which I was challenged, "And aren't you a typical North-side Jew?" To which I replied something I'll stick with: "I hope I'm not a typical anything." ("Only pigeons belong in pigeonholes.")

            I later learned the expression, among young Jewish guys of that time and place, "Professional Jew." Also not a good thing to say, but ….

            But it's not good to reinforce stereotypes, especially by choices that move one toward living a stereotype: only pigeons should limit themselves to pigeonholes.

            Rayon in women's clothing is not a problem; but it is not good for gay males to present themselves in ways that can be seen as a parody of femininity: "The Feminine" viewed sexistly in terms of male chauvinism. To use a distinction from the 1960s, repeated somewhere in the George Carlin opus, but my formulation here: "¡F*g, sí; f*ggot no!"

            Achilles is an interesting literary character, but you probably wouldn't want him and his bloodthirsty companions visiting your neighborhood. And the world is way too full of macho assholes for any encouragement for any guys, of whatever sexuality, to play that role. In this case, Be here and queer, guys — but leave the heavy leather at home or in the dungeon.

            So, to Mr. Perry et al.: Keep the State out of the sex lives between and among consenting adults, and be cautious trying to regulate even older children. To all the neighbors and society more generally: generally, mind your own business. How humans become gay or lesbian — or straight or the rest of The Penthouse Variations and YouPorn potpourri — is an interesting question but not a public policy issue like alcohol abuse; homosex is not a social problem.

            Alternatively, if you are convinced any form of freely-chosen sexuality is a public issue, spell out your logic, politely and civilly: too many places already are bloody from religious violence; we don't need literal culture wars in the USA.

            How people choose to present themselves is also, usually, nobody's business. But if people are choosing to go stereotypical in mischievous ways, a word or two is in order, best delivered civilly by a member of their larger group.