I often write in this blog about links between culture and politics. Indeed, we’ve even got a tag for ‘culture’ (see the bottom of this post). But I’ve never tried to systematize any of this, to tell a larger story about how culture and politics connect.
We need such a story. Over the years, I’ve seen a shift on the left in how we link culture and politics. And, for the most part, it’s a shift for the worse, not the better.
As I wrote a blog post and an article on Isaac Asimov and harassment, these broader issues rose to the surface. Does an author’s work provide insight into their politics? Does our study of culture provide us with political insights? More important for our present purposes – and for trends on the left – does our critique of culture provide us with political insights or breakthroughs? And do we do politics when we make or critique culture?
Bitch Magazine
For years, I’d have given a cautious ‘yes’ answer to those last two questions. Not only can we do politics via cultural analysis, but the left often does it!
I subscribed to Bitch magazine for many years – from my grad school days to a few years out of grad school. During that time, many Bitch articles did exactly this kind of politics. They drew unique political insights by analyzing culture. At times, the articles even drew out useful political strategies.
Things changed over the years. The left changed how it uses culture. It rarely engages in the kind of cultural critique I used to read all the time. Instead, the left turned toward moralism and aspirational and utopian visions for culture. Especially young leftists. Rather than draw insights from culture, we demand that culture reflect the world we want to see. And we make these demands without organizing behind them or using them to build anything.
And so, I changed my mind about those last two questions above. These days, I’d defend a cautious, nuanced ‘no’ answer.
Why?
Current Affairs
Ciara Moloney wrote an article in Current Affairs called “In Defense of South Park.” She captures particularly well the shift I describe above. Readers should check it out.
But the gist of Moloney’s article is that young leftists often use cultural analysis to pretend to do politics. They think they’re doing political through the act of consuming cultural products they like or making demands of cultural producers who they believe fail to live up to a proper worldview. In other words, they think they’re performing political acts by watching the right shows or movies. And they think they change the world by making it so that TV shows or movies portray the world as it should be.
These are hopelessly aspirational and utopian ways of doing politics.
But Why?
It’s harder to organize people than it used to be. And increasingly so. Many of us have jobs – and even educational experiences – that are online or otherwise disconnected from fellow workers. Neoliberalism and finance capitalism robbed the left of most of its infrastructure and institutions. Unions have been in decline for decades. Working-class spaces and hangouts have all but disappeared.
And we have few – if any – ideas or plans for how to get these things back. Or even to create new versions of them.
Given these facts, why should we be surprised that leftists – especially young leftists who grew up in a world without leftist spaces – try to do politics by proxy via culture? But while we can understand this phenomenon, we should not condone it. As a method of doing politics, it’s a mirage at best and ludicrous at worst. As leftists, we won’t change anything of broad significance merely by ‘doing culture the right way.’
Culture and Politics
Not long before the pandemic, I decided not to renew my subscription to Bitch. I hadn’t quite worked out why I didn’t renew. I just knew the magazine had changed in ways I didn’t like. And, reflecting on it years later, I realize it had turned toward the kind of aspirational and utopian ‘cultural analysis’ I describe above.
So, I lost my interest in the magazine. Nothing against the mag at all, but it decided to quit publishing things I wanted to read. So I stopped. And unfortunately, the mag closed up shop in 2022.
Have I lost all interest in cultural analysis? No, not at all. I still think we can learn a ton of things from culture. But to get there, we have to move beyond ‘does this TV show or movie or book depict the world as I want to see it? If so, I’ll watch it and if not, I’ll boycott it or bash it on social media.’ I hold little interest in that.
