Beautiful Freaks 2010-2020

BEAUTIFUL FREAKS
22
February 1, 2017
Disclaimer: I am not very familiar with the work of Father
John Misty. I liked his ‘updated’ cover of ‘God’, although that’s
mostly due to Lennon. I listened to his previous album because
it was supposed to sound like Sufjan Stevens, but wasn’t
impressed and promptly forgot about it. His new songs seem
similarly unremarkable. In any case, this article is not a reflection
on his music but a response to an
essay acompanying his forthcoming album.
As such, I will write as clearly and precisely
as possible, instead of adopting the more
poetic review style. After all, this is politics,
and in politics we cannot afford more half-truths, vagaries
and confusion than we already have. Today, I won’t be a writer;
I will be a sniper: efficient, and ruthless.
Society is pointless. We are running in circles, committing
the same mistakes throughout history, “inventing
meaning where there is none”. Or that’s what Josh Tillman
wants us to believe. I reject this view. Society is deeply
flawed, but not pointless. Progress might not be linear,
but it surely is there. And meaning is indeed conjured out
of thin air and that is the most wonderful thing about
human existence.
Reflecting on the current (depressing) state of the world,
there are different analyses we can offer. We could say, for
example, that the rise of Trump is “garden-variety violent
white nationalism serving as a catch-all for any number of
paranoia-induced anti-fantasies foisted upon the poor and
uneducated precisely by the ideologues bent on manufacturing
voters who can be manipulated into voting against
their own interests by making good and sure they remain
poor and uneducated before cravenly blaming their problems
largely on people bearing distinctions like race, gender,
and sexuality so people forget everything that’s good
about the American experiment” (no, I don’t understand
half of that sentence either, so let’s summarise this view
as ‘Trump is a fascist’), or alternatively we can see it as
an “opportunity to wrench the country back from the
influence of hypocritical corporate tyrants” (here I have
spared you from another ill-formed sentence). To me, the
first option seems closer to the truth. In any case, Tillman
regards both views, and any other along such lines,
as flawed. The flaw is that they are too sophisticated. They
assume a certain degree of order in the world that makes it
fit for analysis in the first place, and according to Tillman,
“[t]he terrifying reality […] is [that] everything is chaos”
This seems to me wrong. Undoubtedly, human affairs are
a nearly unpredictable mess. The election of Trump is just
one example of that. We often get it wrong. But people do
act out of intention. We have goals and make plans and
do our best to reach those goals by what we believe are the
best means. This is true for you and me just as much as
for Trump. No one has little dice in their head that randomly
generate a decision for them. And in fact, Tillman
agrees with this. His explanation for the mess that we’re in
is that “[t]his is how we want it”. Now to me, that does
sound like a bare-bones explanation; a fuller explanation
would look at what exactly it is that we want, who ‘we’ are,
and what kind of general statements we can make about
these wants (such as: white people want to maintain their
power). I am a bit unclear what Tillman’s point exactly
is, then: is it that there is no explanation at all for what is
going on in the world? Or is it that the only explanation is
that “this is how we want it”, and that nothing more can
be said about it? Tillman appears to argue both points,
even though they are mutually exclusive. As the former
seems to me incoherent, I will focus on the latter.
No More Half-Truths: A Takedow
Firstly, we have to qualify who ‘we’ are: do we mean every
single human being, or a subgroup of people who are
in power? I find it wildly implausible that everyone desires
the current state of affairs. Certainly, those fleeing
life-threatening war in Syria who are being denied entry
to the United States do not ‘want’ this! Suggesting this is
not only wrong; it is insensitive to those people in need,
who are being (frankly) fucked over by not just Trump
but by inhumane humans worldwide. To argue his point,
Tillman asks us to consider what alternatives are available.
He claims that the only other option is that we’ll all be at
war with each other “until everyone is dead”. Either we all
agree that this is what we wanted, or we’ll have to off each
other. (Tillman would make a good dictator). He makes
it seem as if this is a choice we are facing, but it is not: we
are trying to give a description of the situation. On a purely
descriptive level, it does look like we are ‘at war’. Not
machine-gun-and-tank wars necessarily (although, sadly,
we’ve got those too), but a fight or social struggle nonetheless.
I attended a protest against Trump the other day and
saw hundreds of people joining this fight. The theory that
“this is what we want” is wholly inadequate to describe
this. Furthermore, even if we consider this as a choice –
do we want to fight or do we just shut our mouths and go
along? – I wholeheartedly support a call to arms.
Yes, let’s fight this injustice, as hard as we can.
Again, to suggest that complicity is the
better option is offensive to those who
cannot even make this choice, those
who have to fight for their lives.
Josh Tillman does have an argument
against the fight option; namely,
that progress is impossible or undesirable.
Impossible it certainly isn’t:
although Trump gives us all a major
1930s deja vu, I proffer that the situation
worldwide today is far better
than it was even decades ago.
Gay marriage, desegregration,
female empowerment – I
don’t want to sound too optimistic
about it ‘cause we’ve got a
long way to go, but to suggest that nothing
has happened is vile. It says to the LGBTQ
community, to women, to people of colour:
your progress, your well-being does not matter.
Such a suggestion could only come from
a very privileged person indeed.
Tillman also mentions that
the fight is necessarily
oppressive: “Is progress
possible? What does
it look like? […]
The destruction of
everyone who fails