Slate: Trump Sold America a Miracle Cure

There are many who hope Trump’s supporters will hold him accountable. That they will insist he fulfill his promises about jobs or universal health coverage—and when those promises are broken, that their fervent support will turn into rage at having been duped, causing Trump anguish and eventually costing him re-election.

This is wishful thinking. Trump’s rise to power has followed a similar trajectory to that of quacks who peddle panaceas to the desperate—a bizarre and heartbreaking world I’ve long studied. Just like them, Trump will fail to deliver. But his supporters will find a way to exonerate him. Consider the ability of one “Archbishop” Jim Humble—a former gold prospector who claims extraterrestrial lineage—to persuade parents to pump their autistic children full of Master Mineral Solution, even though MMS, when activated by citric acid, becomes a dangerous form of industrial bleach. Or “Gerson” therapy evangelists, who talk cancer patients into paying thousands to detoxify with organic juice at a Tijuana, Mexico, clinic, despite studies showing the therapy is ineffective (unsurprising given that it was developed not by oncologists, but an early 20th-century Viennese doctor named Max Gerson as an unsuccessful tuberculosis treatment).

When people make big bets on miracle cures that fail to work, they rarely turn against the treatments or their merchants. Instead, they rationalize their misplaced faith, in order to save face, remain hopeful, and preserve an identity that’s defined by their courageous ability to reject the status quo. [...]

The process of embracing a charlatan’s empowering vision is not rational, which means that rational arguments are unlikely, in isolation, to dispel it. Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that people cling tenaciously to their worldviews, and conflicting data may actually strengthen their beliefs. (Just look at this family who thinks Trump is “a man of faith who will bring Godliness back.”) To renounce Trump would mean admitting that one’s worldview—of a country wracked by carnage, as the president put it in his inaugural address, and a truth-telling hero who can heal it—is fundamentally mistaken. And that can also mean confronting existential panic without a panacea. It is much easier to forgive Trump for not locking her up than to wrestle with such truths.

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VICE: How to Have Gay Sex Without Being Gay (Aug 9 2015)

Each chapter in the book explores a different framing device that our culture uses to understand sex between straight white men: frat house or military hazing rituals, boys-will-be-boys summer camp circle jerks, or the "situational homosexuality" of sailors at sea, for instance. Women, Ward contends, are allowed (or, increasingly, expected) to be more sexually fluid and "open," while the concept of the "down low" has prompted many recent discussions on the supposed sexual fluidity (and duplicity) of men of color. But straight white men are generally held up as the paragons of our sexually normative culture, oriented in one rigid direction, unwavering and in fact disgusted by any other kind of sexuality.

In particular, Ward pays close attention to the ways in which white straight men justify their own sexual behaviors with other men. She neatly breaks down common defenses given to "explain" such actions. For example, sexual contact between men is often seen as a kind of heterosexual bonding if the participants loudly declare how disgusting the activity is (think frat boys "forced" to insert things into each others' assholes—a frequent occurrence in the pages of Not Gay). Yet she points out that many straight men openly express disgust about women's bodies, showing that disgust and desire can easily exist in the same moment. [...]

There's a great book written by this historian George Chauncey about precisely that. It's called Gay New York. I remember very clearly excerpts in it from an interview with a gay man who says, "It was really a bummer when the gay liberation movement started pushing people to come out because it meant that straight men were far less willing to have sex with us." All of a sudden, there are all of these identitarian consequences.

 

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The Conversation: What ‘walkies’ says about your relationship with your dog

In many ways, the walk reflects the historical social order of human domination and animal submission. But research suggests that it also allows humans and dogs to negotiate their power within the relationship. In fact, our recent study found that the daily dog walk involves complex negotiation at almost every stage.

The UK, like many countries, is a nation of pet lovers – 40% of UK households are home to a domestic animal. And for dog owners (24% of UK households) that means a lot of walking. Dog “owners” walk 23,739 miles during an average dog’s lifetime of 12.8 years and reportedly get more exercise from walking their dogs than the average gym goer. Despite this, we actually know very little about how walking and the spaces in which we walk help forge our relationships with dogs. [...]

But dog owners also adapt the timing, length and location of the walks depending on the perceived personality of the dog and what they think the dogs like and dislike the most. One respondent felt that as her dog had been rescued she had a “right” to a good life and giving her a long walk daily was part of this care-giving. There was also the sense that people knew where their dogs liked to walk and walkers spoke of “their stomping ground” and “favourite park”, suggesting that over time, dogs and their companions find spaces that work for them as a partnership or team. [...]

Third parties also influence the nature of the walk. A popular image of dog walkers sees them out and about, chatting with other walkers, their dogs engaging in similar “conversations”. But the social nature of the walk is certainly not a given. Many people simply do not want to socialise with other humans (or their dogs); and some believe their walk would be easier and less stressful if their route was human and dog-free. Participants who had busy lives wanted to get the walk done without distraction. Another respondent, who walked a large pack of dogs, recognised that this would be intimidating for others, so preferred to find quiet places for walks to allow the dogs the freedom to run uninterrupted.

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Politico: Bring back the draft. No, really.

f Sweden reinstitutes the draft, as it is expected to do within a couple of months, many will report the move as a return to a previous era. For centuries, young men in Europe were conscripted for military service to protect countries from invasion. Then came the 1990s and the presumed end of history. With territorial wars considered a thing of the past, large European powers scrapped compulsory military service in favor of smaller professional armed forces.

The return to conscription is both a sign of more uncertain times and the result of difficulties Sweden has had in filling its military roster with only volunteer forces. But it would be a mistake to write off the effort as a rollback of progress. Sweden’s initiative will show the draft in its modern incarnation: targeted, highly selective, and applied to both men and women. [...]

In Sweden, the annual number of conscripts will gradually grow from next year’s 4,000 to 6,000 by 2021. With some 90,000 Swedes born each year, that means only 4.4 percent of Swedish 19-year-olds will be drafted next year. Even when the draft reaches 6,000 conscripts each year, that’s an acceptance rate of less than seven percent. [...]

Indeed, the modern military employs sophisticated equipment that should not be entrusted to youngsters who’d much rather be somewhere else. “When I did my military service everybody had to serve, and if you were less able you worked in support functions like postman,” recalled Eksell. “The selective draft will help us move from military service as something you’re forced to do to something you’re selected to do.”

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Jacobin Magazine: The Politics of Nostalgia

Throughout the advanced capitalist world and beyond, a xenophobic, nostalgic nationalism is taking shape. A flock of old and new leaders are rising up, declaring that our best days are behind us and that they are the most qualified to build a better yesterday. Forget about the future, they say, the past is now the place to be — but not everyone is invited. [...]

Around the world — from Britain to Turkey to the Philippines — we see variants of the same theme: a nostalgic fervor for a proud past, coupled with a hostility toward “outsiders.” Imaginations of this past differ depending on the nation but, ultimately, they amount to the same thing: a phantom homeland with a strong sense of belonging. [...]

Only through the marginalization of others — foreigners, immigrants, LGBTQ people, all those who “don’t belong” — can the reactionary nostalgists turn their remembered past into a site of empowerment. To turn back the clock, others must be turned out. With little else to latch on to, excluding others makes their past feel all the more precious, a thing that can truly be claimed as their own.

This is the dark irony beneath the nativist’s angry refrain to the immigrant “Go back to where you came from”: it is the xenophobe who, more than anyone, wants to go back to where they came from — to an imagined, pure point of origin, a moment in history where their country was a homogenous mass. The racist, like all great nostalgists, is homesick for a home they never had.

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