G&R's 2019 Retrospective: Controversy
Happy new year!
To close up 2019, I’d like to share with you our 10 most controversial pieces. This means that there were many debates on the comment section of the site, on social media or by email. We cherish our writers and readers, and we also cherish our plurality of views. Debate is always welcome, and we are open to suggestions on how we can do better. It’s rare when we need to block someone or delete a comment, and when we do we always make sure to explain why we don’t want our platform to be used to propagate certain views. Below you’ll find the year’s debate highlights.
May 2020 bring us more opportunities to grow and continue being a beautiful resistance.
1
ALCHEMIZING THE LEAD OF MASCULINITY
We published a “prayer for becoming a whole man” and I had to delete comments filled with queer phobic and misogynist rhetoric. It’s a piece that, at the beginning, can provoke visceral reactions in men, perhaps a sense of defensiveness caused by so-called unfair generalizations. The writer, Anthony Rella, is gentle, and attempts to embrace the reader with personal anecdotes to ease their pain. This doesn’t sit well with those who consider two-way conversations about vulnerability an attack, especially when coming from a gay man. The response is representative of the toxicity discussed in the text. So-called unfair generalizations are cultural comments that try to instigate profound shifts within us. Even when we believe these comments aren’t true, why respond by reversing the attacks we believe are being thrown at us?
Today, I begin:
To find the strength to be my gentlest self.
To speak honestly and truly what I know.
To listen curiously to what I do not know.
To hold the strongest necessary boundary.
To care for myself and the people I love.
To release the urge to control those around me.
To commit courageously to living my values.
To claim responsibility for my wants and needs.
To accept the help of those who would meet them.
To seek to know my innate, undeniable worthiness.
To seek to know what I do not know of myself.
To seek to become my most holy and sacred self.
To commit myself to the work of my humanity.
My shoulders release the burdens of isolation.
My legs draw up the powers of the earth.
Today, I begin.
Read more here.
2
HOW THE DISCORDIAN SOCIETY CREATED THE DEEP STATE, AND OTHER SILLY LIES
Irreverent! Yes, our beloved Patacelsus is irreverent, and so are we. Irreverent to the whole business of politics, Right Wingers and Christians. Heresy is our middle name, if it’s not redundant next to our last name: “Heretic Anti-Capitalism.”
Another familiar criticism applied to this piece is: ‘the connections you make between things aren’t true because one thing precedes the other.’ For example, “the concept of Deep State precedes the American Right, so it can be criticized by the left as well.” Sure, both can be true, one is just not the point at the moment.
Once upon a time, in a land far far away (for most readers it would be far, for me it's a day trip), there was a group of Baby Boomers that enjoyed trolling Right Wing groups. They did this in an age in which trolling required effort, Art, forethought, finesse, and of course, a bit of a mean streak. Of course it wasn't called trolling back then; these dope smoking, Leftist, chronically jovial Baby Boomers, lets call them, Discordians, called it by its holy Discordian name, a jape.
The jape was to convince these Right Wingers that there was an ancient organization, called the Illuminati, that really ran everything, and that the Illuminati wanted what they were most afraid of. Certainly, this was not the genesis of the human behavior that seeks order, and someone to blame, in a world that is less than satisfactory. But the modern belief in the “Deep State” has a lineage, and that lineage I think is clear. And the consequences of those old japes, long after all those old Discordians have died, is that the Right sought out a weapon, to destroy the “Deep State”. I say the Right, but there are two types of Right. The people in charge, who don't believe in anything but power and money, like all politicians, and the people who are on the Right, who believe in all the totem ideas that make up their Belief System (herein this will now be referred to as B.S.).
Read more here.
3
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE LACK OF POETRY IN WITCHCRAFT
“Lack” is defined by “the state of being without or not having enough of something.” Some felt that Lilo didn’t acknowledge all the poetry there is. There is poetry, indeed. We know this at G&R, we publish much of it. That doesn’t mean there is enough or that all places don’t go without. This piece was translated from Brazilian Portuguese and was written by a witch living in Rio de Janeiro. This was Lilo’s first article, and we are very happy to have him as a member of our community. He writes beautifully and as the editor I’m happy to see people from a wide range of places relating to what he talked about. I live in the Rio region as well, and the scarcity of poetry here is suffocating. We are surrounded by beautiful landscapes, and we do interact with it as an energy socket. Sacred places, archeological sites and unique natural ecosystems are destroyed by the urban expansion we participate in. We need more and I know you do too. To all poets and readers, we see you, we love you and we wish we could do more for and with you.
In the midst of chaotic cities filled with concrete, pollution, traffic and the need to survive, there is also the desire to find in the middle of the forest an idealized space where the opposite is real. It is as if the divide between the city and the country were something tangible and yet, at the same time, inaccessible. There is endless yearning among those that identify with the term Witch – be it as a craft, be it as a religion, or be it as both with their own differences, or be it as none of these things – to search for this place “in nature”, as if it were a throne to be occupied by someone important. “This is my place”, they say. A way of charging their batteries. As if in “nature” there were a socket where we could hook up our feeding tubes.
This difference between the city and the countryside abides in the pendular movement that swings the practitioner of the Craft from one pole to the other, in an unending search for belonging, as if such a place really existed, where there would be a time when “everything makes sense”. A place where things would fit in, where the green would be greener, where the leaves would fall in a rhythm able to conduct the deepest trance, and where the flight of the Witch would be straightforward, since, there “it comes naturally”. What they do not say is that witches who go there are still what they are: the products of a determined place, cut out and boxed in by their own era, the result of a series of civilizational symbolic processes – the result of the loss of barbarity and of savagery. The product of our capitalist society.
Read more here.
4
NO, THAT’S NOT WHAT FASCISM IS
This one was about a controversy… so, it’s self-explanatory. When we talk about Fascism, that tends to happen. The debate over the definition of the term has been going on since the term came to be, and because it deals with people’s right to existence, the debate many times feels like a matter of life and death. We understand that, and we vehemently oppose causing harm to anyone’s existence. The problem is the dispute over how anti-fascist views may cause harm to those labeled fascist. On one hand the term is brutally overused and applied indiscriminately, and on the other antifascists are accused of creating or reproducing the problem by pointing it out. Each antifascist community has tried to draw this line somewhere, and here is ours. (Thank you, Shane Burley, for the work you do and for working with us.)
A while back I got an email, the same email I get regularly, telling me to be alert for a new fascist on the streets. These are reasonably common given what I usually write about, and sometimes prove useful in figuring out how the white nationalist movement is shifting and evolving, threatening violence into communities already at siege. This was not one of those.
Instead, it was telling me that an editor of Gods & Radicals had gone over the edge into the “fascist creep” and that I should join in outing them as such, not to mention I should refuse to write for them. The reason for this email seems to be a recent social media post by that editor in which they disagree, in strong terms, with the doxing of far-right people as an antifascist tactic. This angered many and, given some of the rumbling whispers about Gods & Radicals, it seems that the perception of the institution reached a tipping point. Now there was some fascism.
Read more here.
5
TRENDING TOPICS DON'T MATTER
Me Too and Black Lives Matter are important, but not because they are hashtags and trending topics. Some people had a hard time separating the tool used by a movement from the political purpose of that movement, which made them feel that I was dismissing the movements as a whole. The political purpose of the Me Too hashtag isn’t to be an influential trending topic, it’s to end men’s abuse of power over women’s bodies and to help women find strength in the shared experiences of a community. The hashtag was as important to the purpose of the movement as Netflix envelopes were important to getting DVD’s to and from you. Thanks to what communities were doing, Weinstein was fired from his own company and Blockbuster died out. In the end, what matters is the will of the people — with it, tools can be materialized or seized.
Black Lives Matter is not a hashtag. A burning gothic cathedral doesn’t really matter. And watching Jason Momoa shaving his beard is hot, but it won’t clean up the oceans. We went through this phase where we thought social media could be the cradle of a revolution, but now that this idea had time to mature we can see it for the passing phase it is, can’t we?
Social media algorithms are the guise of censorship and media control. Trending topics, which are based on sharp spikes in the volume of mentions of a topic, can be easily manufactured and capitalised on. For a while we believed these sharp spikes could be used to raise awareness of important issues that are usually neglected by main stream media, acting as an editorial process of the people. But now it’s clear that these are extensions of the main stream media. Trending topics and hashtags are tools to up ratings, not to mobilize a revolution. It stirs a disoriented flock of people in a misleading direction, one that seems to be for a “Cause”, when it reality it’s more likely to be an elaborate marketing scheme for something we didn’t even know was a product (such as a “culture capital" tourist destination).
Read more here.
6
INTERVIEW WITH YEZIDI ACTIVIST AND SCHOLAR NALLEIN SOWILO
This piece was difficult to publish. On the one hand, it was important to hear from some Yazidis. On the other, there were things being said that could be used outside our control and cause harm. We must support oppressed peoples everywhere, but sometimes at the risk of being used as pawns in a diplomatic struggle we might not know enough about.
It became quickly apparent that ISIS had integrated into the Kurdish Barazani Council. They began, with cooperation of the PKK (Kurdish Militia), to forcibly remove Yezidi from the area.
Read more here.
7
WHO'S AFRAID OF "CULTURAL MARXISM"?
This one was also about a controversy… so, it’s self-explanatory. Conservative Communists and Anticommunists made a passionate encounter in the comment section of the post for our first book in Brazilian Portuguese, a translation of All That is Sacred is Profaned by Rhyd Wildermuth. As the book’s translator Thiago Sá pointed out: “Look! Bolsonarism and Orthodox Marxism have met and made out.”
The Red Scare is back, at least in Trump fueled Brazil. Earlier this month, G&R published its first book in Brazilian Portuguese and the responses reveal what our President has already made clear: there is widespread rage and terror about communism. In this piece, I’ll discuss how anti-capitalism has been reduced to a fury-inducing thoughtless trend, and no, it won’t consist of “ok, boomer” jokes (just this one).
There are widespread misconceptions about how Marxism exists in people’s lives. I don’t mean delusion about what the ideology stands for, but about the role it plays in the lives of people who identify as Marxist, or have a vague interest in the topic. This brings us to “Cultural Marxism,” that neat conspiracy theory that aims to ridicule anyone who isn’t convinced today’s “World Economy” is an organic and beautiful expression of human nature. On the other hand, this also brings us to communist dogma, which can’t imagine class consciousness being expressed outside a Stalinist or Maoist model. While one side blames the poor for society’s ills, the other blames Pagans, alongside black liberation and LGBTQ movements, for using “identity politics” to divide the working class (with the financial help of the Ford Foundation).
Read more here.
8
IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR: ON MATTERING, WILL, AND HOPE
Madonna appropriates other people’s cultures. For instance, she is a fan of Ashtanga Yoga and made a song with the lyrics to the opening mantra to the practice (this type of yoga is considered by many as Westernized in general). The song “Holiday” came out in the early 80’s, when the gay community in the United States was dealing with a terrifying rise of HIV/AIDS cases, and prejudice. The community was not feeling the vibes she was singing about. Still, I hope it’s not a deal breaker for you that when “Like a Virgin” plays at the gay bar we dance and sing our hearts out like there is no tomorrow. And there is a reason why.
My favorite bar in Chicago is a small brunch place in an out-of-the-way neighborhood that becomes a gay bar by night. One of its unique features is that, unlike most gay bars whose DJs provided meticulously curated playlists, this bar leaves a jar for song requests, which usually means that every time I go there’s about an hour in the night where we’re hearing songs we all know deeply and love well, shouting along to the lyrics. When we go back to visit, I make sure I make a stop there, and in August of 2019 I stood, grooving to Rihanna, and realized I wanted to hear “Like a Prayer” by Madonna.
A spiritual person who I followed on social media had posted a link to an astrological writing about the end of Jupiter’s retrograde period and its return to direct motion. This writer, Aeolian Heart, spoke of Jupiter’s role in faith, hope, and meaning, and in this article she used “Like a Prayer” as a love song between Spirit and Soul in their blissful union. From her perspective, Spirit is that part of us that animates and vitalizes us with a sense of larger purpose, a sense of meaning beyond what we can know in any moment. Soul, in turn, is closer to us, that part of us that gathers and processes our experiences and longings, both our sufferings and our joys, on this earth.
Read more here.
9
DON’T SHOOT THE MESSENGER! INVASIVE SPECIES AND HALTING BIODIVERSITY LOSS
Biodiversity is good, so we should halt its loss — of course. But! (There is a “but”…) How? Avi brings us a shift in perspective on how to deal with invasive species, and that perhaps there is a strategy to halt biodiversity loss that does more harm than good. Perhaps it benefits something other than the ecosystems we claim to be thinking in the best interest of. G&R has shown support of XR in the past and will continue to do so. Critiquing their strategies on specific points doesn’t mean we aren’t on the same side of the struggle, or that we are on a campaign to bring them down.
Halting biodiversity loss is demanded by XR alongside other climate movements. But who decides what halts biodiversity loss? Most of these movements directly address established governance actors. At best XR proposes legally binding citizen assemblies informed by expert knowledge. So who is going to hear these demands in these organisations or enact the decisions of these assemblies? What is the status quo amongst these organisations and their experts for halting biodiversity loss? The same questions can be asked for all of the demands of contemporary climate mobilizations. Hence, the status quo on how climate demands are enacted is critical. What is the status quo?
Critical yet generative attention has already been drawn to green growth and clean energy as dominant ideas to act on climate change. Here I want to critically address one of the established pillars for halting biodiversity loss: invasive species. Classified as one of the biggest threats to biodiversity, if you are actively concerned with halting biodiversity loss, it is critical to consider invasive species and whether current efforts to address them are worth it. The dominant way of dealing with invasive species is to eradicate them. Vast numbers of them are killed every year and huge sums of time and money are earmarked for doing so. Proponents of this method position themselves as practical people doing the necessary work of saving other species through waging war on harmful and unwanted species.
Read more here.
10
THE FUTURE IS FASCIST
The borders of your home are not the same as the borders of your country. The anarchist concept of private property is crucial here, and it’s where many readers can disagree or get confused by the idea of fascist borders. We have the right to privacy and to personal belongings. That’s not the same as hoarding the wealth that comes from charging others to access your property, which has the sole purpose to produce profits for you while being sustained by the labor of others. Governments can be fascist, and they rely on borders to delineate the official property of the State and to guarantee the execution of their fascist polices.
Talking about the normalization of fascist views makes this piece come off as grim, but it can also be seen as an opportunity to rethink that which we’ve normalized, and to push back against that which has been normalized.
The abrupt appearance of fascist, ultranationalist, racial separatist, and authoritarian movements throughout the world in the last five years—and their success in coming to power through “democratic” electoral processes—is truly terrifying. At no time since the 1930’s have we seen not only a comfort but a deep lust for authoritarianism in so many people: closed borders, immigration raids, direct and brutal violence against political opposition, flagrant displays of racism and male chauvinism, popular referendums towards national separatism, and an almost jubilant erosion and revocation of civil protections for minorities.
Multiple theories have arisen as to precisely why this is happening. Unfortunately, none of them suffice to explain the actual causes, only assure us that what has arisen throughout the world can be fought or stopped. In general, these theories usually label these fascist impulses as “reactionary,” meaning that they are conservative at their core and wish to turn back the clock on social progress or stop an inevitable flood of civil rights expansions.
Read more here.
Extra
We officially associated ourselves with a controversial public figure, Glenn Greenwald, by translating one of his speeches from Brazilian Portuguese to English. People don’t like it that he has gone on Fox News to talk with Tucker Carlson, and that he works with problematic media in general. He still is sitting on quite a lot of information leaked by Snowden. In Brazil, however, he has shown how much change journalism can bring about in a seemingly helpless political landscape. This year, he has been the most powerful force against Bolsonaro and his wave of racist and homophobic rhetoric.
MIRNA WABI-SABI
is a writer, political theorist, teacher and translator. She is an editor at Gods&Radicals, founder of the Enemy of the Queen megazine and of the Plataforma 9 media collective. Her work orbits around Capitalism, White Supremacy and Patriarchy, and the proposals involve resistance to Eurocentrism and Western Imperialism.