Bad Gays: Is Lady Gaga wrong?

00:00:00: Big problem, right?

00:00:01: These are our great cultural heroes and yet there they are fucking each other up the ass.

00:00:06: And then people move to cities... ...and all of a sudden you have these masses of singles!

00:00:12: Right?!

00:00:13: This is also when straight dating is invented The world's most graceful sitting down on this bench.

00:00:20: I'm not

00:00:21: a writer or dancer.

00:00:22: There's kind of line that often comes in popular history That we've always been here We haven't And I think the fact that we haven't is actually good news.

00:01:07: My guest today is a very special guest.

00:01:10: I'm a big fan and i would like you to introduce yourself, please Ben because Ben Miller You do so much.

00:01:16: who are you?

00:01:18: Oh God that's.

00:01:19: uh That's a psychoanalyst question isn't it?

00:01:21: no oh who am?

00:01:22: my name Is ben miller ima writer and historian.

00:01:25: um i'm member of the board Of The Schwullesmuseum in Berlin And my work focuses mostly on queer history, the history of queer identities and subjectivities.

00:01:38: And movements.

00:01:39: so that's what I do Make a podcast along with Hugh Lemme called Badgaze and co-wrote this book that you very helpfully have in front of us.

00:01:50: Badgaz, A Homosexual History available wherever fine books are sold.

00:01:53: Right we gotta start with an ad immediately!

00:01:55: And season nine of badgaze is actually about to be released.

00:01:59: where ever your listening for the podcast You Can Find Us.

00:02:03: So if like sound my voice there's many hours available before listen too I will keep plugging it.

00:02:10: I can absolutely attest it up, because i listen to every episode.

00:02:14: And so the reason why this book looks so shazzy is that

00:02:17: there's a helpline available for people who... Of course!

00:02:20: I've written and said a few times That I don't really think of history as science, but I do think those poems about ghosts impel us truthful as possible in our attempt to recreate a past that is fundamentally not fully recreatable.

00:02:45: One of the oldest cliches of history writings, That The Past Is A Foreign Country.

00:02:50: They Do Things Differently There.

00:02:52: All Of Our Assumptions About How Things Are How People Are How Systems Work None Of Them Or Certainly Not All Of Them Can Be Assumed To Apply When We're Talking about Just fundamentally different time and place than the one that we live in now at.

00:03:12: That's actually what a lot of my research In queer history has ended up really focusing on is looking at, And this is what I think history can sort of help best Help us answer right?

00:03:26: Looking at how we got to The place that were in write.

00:03:31: What are these Subject positions that we're kind of standing on?

00:03:36: where do they come from?

00:03:39: What other kinds of systems affect this as we call in the business sex gender system right, This System Of Sex and Gender That Creates The Possibilities That We Live In Right.

00:03:54: This System of Sex And Gender That Interfaces Between The Bodies That Were In And The Things That We Do With Those Bodies a society in which those bodies are apprehended, interact and talked about.

00:04:11: I

00:04:13: think maybe for people who aren't so deep into these topics we need to try this time to answer some of the questions or start...

00:04:22: Absolutely!

00:04:23: That's what i'm here to do.

00:04:24: but let me ask you before like personally Little Ben, for example.

00:04:29: What's there a time when you're like in moment where he said oh I think I need to look back at history and that helps me personally?

00:04:37: One thing i'll say is if your'e on any other minoritized group right newsflash im gay so theres the big news.

00:04:44: break On this podcast of never before said.

00:04:48: But When You are In Any Other Minoritize Community Right You Learn About what your position is both in it and then what the position of that community is relative to the rest of the world.

00:05:03: as a child from family usually, right?

00:05:05: You know you learn that you're Jewish.

00:05:08: And that's what this means.

00:05:09: or I do?

00:05:09: you learned that you are an immigrant after this means where at some point realize that you were different than other people but all are different in that same way.

00:05:19: And for queers, because we're sort of like a virus right?

00:05:25: We can infect any previously pristine family line...we have to kind find each other and figure all this stuff out on our own.

00:05:35: And so this, what the scholar Caroline Dinshaw once called a queer desire for history.

00:05:41: Right?

00:05:42: An attempt to figure out kind of who we are and what we as absolutely something that has shaped my life is an absolute huge part why I do these.

00:05:52: As maybe will talk about.

00:05:55: sometimes those desires can lead I think important and interesting insights.

00:06:02: And sometimes it leads to some unfortunate things too, so

00:06:07: yeah... Okay!

00:06:07: So let's start maybe with the fortunate thing.

00:06:10: What was your first book or you read?

00:06:13: Or did that interest you in learning

00:06:15: more?

00:06:15: The first piece of history is an extraordinary first essay called The Night They Rated Stonewall, then book called Stonewall by Martin Dooberman.

00:06:31: And his professional biography also is very important to me.

00:06:35: Doobermen was trained as a historian of the Civil War and had a tenure-track position at Princeton University—so he's on top in American Academy—and but became part of a small group of gay left-wing academics, along with people like Jonathan Ned Katz and others who Alan Barabay.

00:06:59: Who were starting to talk about what the impact on their work of this kind of burgeoning Gay Liberation movement would be?

00:07:09: And Duberman decides to A come out—and he comes in a book that he writes about The Black Mountain College which is just kinda American Bauhaus —the rural American Bauhouse if you will And then switches from working at Princeton to work in the City University of New York, which is a much less well-funded public institution.

00:07:27: But instead of teaching the children of Titans of Industry he's teaching them kind of Working Class Kids Of New York City and Then starts to write these works of queer history including Stonewall Including an extraordinary book that's a dual biography of The AIDS Activists Michael Callan and Essex Hemphills called Hold Tight Gently.

00:07:47: But he starts to write these books that are, in addition to being very deeply researched.

00:07:57: They're also just extraordinarily written doing queer history and a way is really kind of for-and with people which something I believe in And i reject the idea That you have do anything down Like, that's the whole point of badgaze is you can do this work with and for people without dumbing any of it down.

00:08:20: You have a grown-up conversation where there are people who're ready to have it.

00:08:24: I started reading The Doberman Stuff when i was at beginning university.

00:08:28: That kind of focus came in before that... ...I thought I would be a diplomat which is very funny.

00:08:34: Yeah thats why I asked like what were thinking?

00:08:39: When you do an interview, I saw many of your interviews or even the way you write.

00:08:43: It's still very entertaining and maybe not easy read but it is a quick read.

00:08:48: so yeah... You were quite young when reading all this which was super interesting.

00:08:55: How did you end up in Germany, for example?

00:09:27: that a history I was really focused on in its U.S.-American form had extremely important root components here, right?

00:09:38: That this is actually the place where a lot of these histories have been made or as I would rather say Berlin's one kind of laboratories were our contemporary concepts for sex gender are worked out... For better and worse!

00:09:52: You mentioned Magnus Hirschfeld.

00:09:53: not obviously he very very important.

00:09:58: He's just one of the many people.

00:10:00: Maybe can you like give us a little example?

00:10:02: Of what that means, so for people who haven't read or maybe just start to get to know about queer history.

00:10:10: if You have a person like him why is it important to know more about his life and work And what he did in Berlin?

00:10:17: Herschfeldt Is The Forerunner Of Contemporary Liberal Consensus About Sex Gender And by that, I mean it is very obvious.

00:10:31: It feels very obvious to most people living now... ...I would say even to most.

00:10:39: like phobic people living know That there's such a thing as gay or lesbian or trans person That their gayness of lesbian and transness are kind component part of them That its difficult to separate if separable, we assume that you can be a gay man right?

00:11:03: That I can be gay without changing the degree to which i'm a men.

00:11:10: There's all sorts of cultural baggage around it but its not...I am confused for woman when walk down street and all these concepts start worked out, or one of the early places where they're starting to be worked-out is in Hirschfeld's life and research.

00:11:34: Hirschfeld develops... He was born into the late nineteenth century in East Pomeranian.

00:11:40: what now?

00:11:41: Poland?

00:11:42: he moves to Berlin after medical study comes from a bourgeois Jewish family And receives a medical education that very prudish infobic Matters, right?

00:11:57: Drawings of sex organs are erased as soon as they're drawn.

00:12:03: A homosexual is brought in along with a child molester and someone who flashes women in public parks And their sort-of shown off to the class.

00:12:12: When I say a homosexual... ...I'm talking at that moment about new kind of person That's being invented.

00:12:21: Masses of people start moving into European cities in the nineteenth century.

00:12:26: These masses of people for the first time are living lives where they have the capacity to have asexuality and that does not sound very intuitive.

00:12:39: so I want break it down.

00:12:40: Can

00:12:40: we even start a little earlier at this question because you automatically did something, what were talking about?

00:12:48: almost actually like if he said at that time it meant.

00:12:51: So can you explain to us?

00:12:53: Like why or how, how we look at certain people in history?

00:12:59: Because I think what happens often is the people look at let's say.

00:13:02: It's a Roman Empire.

00:13:03: Look at an emperor and they say oh here He was man and had sex with men so he was gay.

00:13:08: well The joke that i always make Is That You know the ancient Greek kind of antecedents too Homosexuality, you know all of those kind of undeniable Vases that presented such a problem for Victorian anthropologists.

00:13:25: You know the British would refer to it as The unspeakable vice of the Greeks.

00:13:31: Big Problem.

00:13:32: right these are our great cultural heroes.

00:13:34: and yet there they are fucking each other up.

00:13:37: They asked Which you know here I wasn't supposed to do But the way that sexuality was constructed in ancient Greek society is a citizen, right?

00:13:48: A male full-male citizen would have a wife and then also be only the active partner with men of a lower social status.

00:14:02: The joke that I make in America is now we call it being Republican Senator not being a gay guy.

00:14:06: Right But but but.

00:14:08: but the comparison that i want people to make Is think about That!

00:14:13: And Then Think About The Contemporary What we mean think.

00:14:16: and now when we think about a gay man in the contemporary world, which means We think of two or more but usually to partners of Similar are equal social status right?

00:14:27: And nothing about the two of them tells you who does what-to-who.

00:14:32: Right then that is kind of the main relationship.

00:14:36: Right That is completely different from someone having a lot of gay sex while also having a wife with whom they're continuing, A Family Line.

00:14:43: Right?

00:14:44: These are two different social institutions.

00:14:45: They have to different meanings.

00:14:48: In ancient Greece this was extremely common behavior.

00:14:52: Now it's relatively uncommon behavior.

00:14:55: so you know if like My friend Xavier Nunn Is really wonderful historian Of trans life and in Germany has coined his wonderful kind of noun verb phrase that I like which is sex changes, right?

00:15:11: Like sex changes over time and something like that really proves it.

00:15:16: But what's happening in the late nineteenth century to get back this Hirschfeld story Is that all these people have moved into these cities.

00:15:23: And you know think about village life One doesn't really have That much an opportunity To date Homosexual or heterosexual, right?

00:15:36: You kind of.

00:15:37: you know in many traditional societies courtship is relatively Sort of socially codified.

00:15:46: the community is involved in it.

00:15:48: Right and then people move to cities And all of a sudden you have these masses of singles, right.

00:15:56: and this Is also when straight dating is invented.

00:16:00: The term heterosexuality is actually coined after the term homosexuality, interestingly enough.

00:16:07: So you have straight dating as invented.

00:16:08: You have all these people hanging around and then suddenly the morality of this becomes a matter of public concern.

00:16:16: What are our workers doing at night?

00:16:19: They start to win things like first the twelve-hour day Then ten hour days And eight hours.

00:16:24: they won one or two days off a week.

00:16:27: what do we do in their free time you know, and some number of these people who are uprooted in this way and who are living in this new kind of environment begin to realize that they're sort-of that way inclined.

00:16:43: And begin to form these relationships.

00:16:47: It's important also to note at this time That there is no distinction between what we would now call gay and trans people.

00:16:57: So there is absolutely no kind of formal discursive distinction between those things, it's all in one spectrum And All Of Those Distinctions Between Gay & Trans Have Been Made By People Who Want To Separate Themselves From Aspects Of Trans Life That Are Perceived to Be Either Messy Or Economically Disadvantages Or or whatsoever.

00:17:25: they want to be sort of respectable men who happen?

00:17:27: To do this on the side as opposed to these sort of dizzy street Queens.

00:17:30: we talk about identity a lot and I like to then Push it a little further, and talk about the conditions of possibility for identity.

00:17:37: Okay right so what?

00:17:39: What has to Be true in order For people to have certain options?

00:17:45: And that's where We get into This conversation About.

00:17:47: you know how These new kind Of identities begin to be born in the late nineteenth century, In a world where you suddenly have masses of single people and cities for the first time.

00:18:04: And by the way none of that is to say there were no same-sex behavior and gender trouble or gender crossing behaviors are as old as they exist in every society.

00:18:18: The ways we construct them now are new And so there's a kind of line that often comes up in pop-clear history, we've always been here.

00:18:29: We haven't and I think the fact that we haven't is actually good news.

00:18:38: but right now because it means the world can be different a lot of us agree that we need the world to be pretty different than it is.

00:18:46: And I think when we start seeing these specific identity categories, as being products in time did not create those categories because this moment was uniquely progressive and created them reactionary and violent time.

00:19:11: These are identities that were created out of forced displacement, colonization vast social inequality you know all themes very prevalent today.

00:19:23: um...and if we start to think about them in this way as identity's that our attempts turn categories.

00:19:33: medical diagnosis Right.

00:19:36: homosexuality begins as a way of diagnosing people medically.

00:19:39: Hirschfeld to get back to Hirschfeld is a doctor.

00:19:42: He wants to be an affirming doctor.

00:19:44: he continues To have this medical approach and he says well, it's a benign deviation And People can fit in one Of these thousands of what?

00:19:51: He calls exo-elits fishing stufan sexual steps In between the hundred percent man at The Hundred percent woman.

00:19:57: Again you see him that kind of spectrum how gay and trans are thought of his being absolutely part of the same kind-of sex gender fabric, which I think they are.

00:20:07: And what Hirschfeld is doing there isn't in one sense you know he's saying well it's benign physical difference, benign biological deviation... He's accepting the idea this is a medical diagnosis right?

00:20:23: and One of interesting things that no one has ever figured out what that medical diagnosis could be, right?

00:20:30: There's no biological basis for homosexuality anyone has ever discovered.

00:20:33: and I think it's because there isn't one.

00:20:36: And...and i tend to think- and this is now me editorializing a little bit- That there are better arguments For the flourishing of queer life than we just can't help ourselves.

00:20:48: The foundation of the kind of liberal consensus on gay rights that emerges out of this Hirschfeldian discourse and similar stuff in a lot other countries is probably best summed up by Lady Gaga's song Born This Way.

00:21:00: We were born this way, you can be proud about being born this but even if your'e really saying I just cant help it You're still thinking as an affliction.

00:21:16: There are a few problems with this.

00:21:19: One of them being that if we think about it biologically, then we ignore the fact there is tremendous change in numbers of queer-identifying people over time as social possibilities change.

00:21:32: So let me now jump way ahead to present day and explain what I mean by that.

00:21:36: If you look at past two generations The boomer generation Something like three percent In most western countries they're identifying LGBT Q, whatever.

00:21:46: Gen X is about ten.

00:21:47: Millennials are about twelve.

00:21:49: Gen Z it's like twenty-twenty five.

00:21:51: right and all of the growth in gen z Is not all of The Growth.

00:21:56: much Of The Growth In Gen Z as people Identifying As Bisexual People Identifying as Non-Binary.

00:22:02: Something's Happening.

00:22:04: I don't think it does us any good to say that nothing is happening.

00:22:25: more people who are sort of finding different paths through the world that work better for them and that's good.

00:22:38: I have

00:22:38: a lot questions, let me start by asking this.

00:22:44: so you were talking before we came to all these arguments about this and these facts about art history like how old categories on it happened?

00:22:52: You were talking about people going into sexual categories, for example.

00:23:04: So what happened on the countryside?

00:23:06: For example let's say you were in a country site that was as mentioned five thousand years ago.

00:23:11: has all this human kind of always been people attracted to same sex?

00:23:16: so it happens at the time when we are going into cities like Europe.

00:23:21: I mean its not about What I think.

00:23:24: the point is that the same person depending on where they are Is going to have different possibilities available?

00:23:31: To them Right?

00:23:32: so that if you are living in a situation Where your kind of courtship and mating is being community determined like You could spend your entire life having sex with other men all the time, but you'll still Probably end up in an opposite-sex marriage and produce couple kids.

00:23:49: right many people, many more people will do that.

00:23:52: Right?

00:23:53: Then if you are in a city environment and your deciding on your own kind of courtship then have little bit like self-determination right says it.

00:24:00: I mean this is them the blessing in the curse of nineteenth century liberalism right Isit?

00:24:05: It uproots all these peoples out of feudal relationships And creates new proletariat.

00:24:11: They don't have land to work so they need to exchange their um... they need salaries, and this creates conditions of alienation.

00:24:22: And yet also create the conditions a possibility for certain kinds of Freedoms in an end kind of self expression right?

00:24:33: This is I mean that they might.

00:24:34: my analysis here Is like Marxian in The biggest in the most broad possible way.

00:24:39: yeah

00:24:39: obviously but But let's just go to real people Like Let's say your person from Brandenburg at the time where mark the socialist already less slowly starting what he did in Berlin.

00:24:50: But you're at Brandenburg, working on a farm for example still and so if your man feels drawn to other men would happen?

00:25:00: Would just have sex with them because... Maybe

00:25:06: or another thing that starts play into the twentieth century's media.

00:25:12: Maybe you read a newspaper article like in nineteen oh seven when there's a big scandal of apparent homosexuality and the court of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

00:25:23: And Hirschfeld testifies at some slander trials against The journalist Maximilian Hauden is being sued for having called people homosexuals, and Hirschfield testifies an offers his kind of scientific definition Of what homosexuality is?

00:25:36: This causes an enormous scandal.

00:25:38: however What it also means that all newspapers repeat Hirschfeld's definition of a homosexual, which means maybe you read it and You know and this is a pattern actually that repeats itself.

00:25:52: One of the reasons why I call queer people virus as pattern.

00:25:55: That repeats itself throughout The twentieth century.

00:25:57: there's one every.

00:25:58: There is a big piece of scandalous media about queer People, what are things it does?

00:26:01: Is It makes more Of us?

00:26:03: because you Know And This was even in the by By the time of kind of early gay liberation.

00:26:08: This Was Even an intentional Media Strategy.

00:26:10: Right Like Organizations Would Agree to be Profiled In Relatively Fobic Ways Because They Knew it would get their name out there in ways that they weren't capable of doing.

00:26:19: and then people would call like every.

00:26:21: you know, There's a sort of infamous CBS TV news evening report with Mike Wallace from nineteen sixty.

00:26:28: four called the homosexuals.

00:26:30: And Very funny actually, to be completely frank.

00:26:38: But you know the organizations that were profiled in it.

00:26:43: this early gay-lib organization called The Matteshine Society reported afterwards they had like all of these new contacts.

00:26:49: because people suddenly saying wait a minute So wait, what's the name of?

00:26:53: where are The Scary Homosexuals meeting like?

00:26:56: What's the address?

00:26:56: Well.

00:26:57: What's it called?

00:26:57: you know.

00:26:58: and And people kind of find their way to it right so that farmer in Brandenburg could then maybe throw the plow down and You know join the new throngs in Berlin and find Find a new kind of life certainly

00:27:12: but if he finds another man and has sex at Brandenbourg Then is there any repercussion for him as they're societal?

00:27:19: Well, it depends on who finds out.

00:27:21: Right at the time Sodomy is illegal under paragraph one seventy-five so he could be arrested and jailed.

00:27:27: In fact Paragraph One Seventy Five was mostly used to persecute sex workers.

00:27:35: The majority of prosecutions were for consensual sex work.

00:27:42: There certainly that threat And there also meant a threat of blackmail.

00:27:49: One of the big reasons why Hirschfeld, because Hirschfeld not only was coming up with this scientific definition but also as a chair in a group called the Scientific Humanitarian Committee which mostly worked on social democrats at that time trying to change law.

00:28:05: And one of those big sources for financial support is wealthy men who were sick of being blackmailed by the poorer men and rent boys they had sex with, who didn't want those people to be able to threaten them with social and financial ruin.

00:28:23: By coming forward with their story in the

00:28:24: street.".

00:28:25: Okay so I think my head is spinning.

00:28:27: we talked a lot about these things.

00:28:30: i have some many follow-up questions but let's maybe go do a

00:28:34: little tea time right now.

00:28:35: Tea Time sounds great!

00:28:41: It's time for tea.

00:29:00: Cap, did you choose which other utomanian and US-American would be MAG?

00:29:04: So which MAG that you chose?

00:29:05: what Did You bring

00:29:06: for us.

00:29:06: I brought my Schwulesmuseum MAG with our lovely logo SMU And then SchwulesMuseum here on this side.

00:29:13: Um i've been a board member there For now almost six years.

00:29:18: We're the world's largest independent institution Dedicating to archiving, exhibiting and researching queer histories in visual cultures.

00:29:26: And we're right here in Berlin.

00:29:26: if anyone wants to come visit us please do or open six days a week... ...and always have different exhibitions events!

00:29:35: Also If Anyone is particularly interested in the history of Queer German movements after sixty-eight We have an online exhibition that anyone can look at as well.

00:29:44: so take a look at it.

00:29:46: That's very cool.

00:29:48: How did you actually meet?

00:29:52: I was brought in as part of a diversity initiative.

00:30:19: kind of political direction the institution would take.

00:30:22: And I was brought in as part of team openness and team diversity, a team that wanted The Museum to be by about and for a larger group of people than it initially founded by and served.

00:30:39: And actually what I thought was really interesting is that the founders of The organization, people who we call them are gründungsmutter.

00:30:45: People who started it back in the eighties were all with us.

00:30:49: They were all.

00:30:50: they were all in favor What some other people referred to as the lesbian takeover.

00:30:55: But you know... Lesbian Takeover Yes but those days are behind this.

00:31:01: not a lesbian take over day's but the days Of conflict about existence and other kinds of building.

00:31:06: We're now I think a much more settled in our direction, so i'm happy about that.

00:31:13: But it's still called Schullesmuseum right?

00:31:15: Yeah!

00:31:15: So the decision was made to not change...to try and change the programming first And then address the name.

00:31:21: By the time we got into the name We realized actually Schullismuseum is better Like at least has some sort of edge To it.

00:31:30: The German speakers listening will know what I mean.

00:31:31: English people know Schwul is not quite as bad, but it's a little bit sort of busy.

00:31:41: It has some bite to it and we think that too.

00:31:44: so I

00:31:48: would

00:31:48: say its queer history.

00:31:50: And thats why we've also gone with this smooth branding As way for breaking away from just the pure schwules.

00:32:02: We were talking a lot about Europe.

00:32:05: How in Europe people are seen as men and women, how they're seen as homosexual or at least loving man?

00:32:13: And have this changed little bit?

00:32:16: but I wanted to go see the difference between different parts of the world.

00:32:22: let's say if we go back same time In Latin American countries for example can you give us an examples?

00:32:30: Different culture saw what we would call nowadays homosexual or trans How they reacted to that how they saw it in a different way.

00:32:39: Well, again We're talking about behaviors not identities.

00:32:42: so There is.

00:32:44: there are no homosexual people or trans people as we understand them now in for example and You know pre-colonial Nigeria right?

00:32:56: We did an episode female king in pre-colonial Nigeria and one of the really interesting things on that episode is, um...the book we were mostly working from.

00:33:10: The Book Of Research by a doctor Achebe who's the daughter of Chinua Achebee whose great Nigerian novelist wrote this biography of this female King in Pre-Colonial Nigeria was Person had become known enough to be kind of a figure in some queer theory and people were talking about, you know, the gender trouble reading or transreading.

00:33:33: this person was saying no-no like don't do not import these Western Queer assumptions onto this person.

00:33:40: We're talking about different sexgender system.

00:33:42: we are talking about a sex gender system with which it is possible to be female king without being any less of a woman.

00:33:49: And it's possible to be a female king, without necessarily being lesbian right?

00:33:56: To actually take this stuff seriously requires not just trying look at other cultures for examples how we're really wonderful and special something that a lot of European queer people do with anthropology, right?

00:34:12: We started to say oh look we were all shamans back then or we were this and so on.

00:34:16: No what you actually really need to do is deconstruct our own assumptions and say okay well what are we looking at?

00:34:24: let's not make any assumption because again we're talking about the system of sex in gender.

00:34:31: everything exists between bodies.

00:34:37: That system is totally different or could be totally different, right?

00:34:41: No part of that system need to be the same and so let's Be really rigorous about what we actually mean.

00:34:47: So

00:34:47: what it like they asked was the most important thing We need you do from your point-of-view.

00:34:51: I mean, I think we can't.

00:34:52: It's not that I think that understanding in the other isn't possible But understanding the other requires very actively Not making all of the assumptions that we want To make ourselves, right?

00:35:07: And so much of our encounter with the other is actually about ourselves.

00:35:12: So if we want to address or understand the others and think about them then be very careful what assumptions are bringing us into it... ...and also why.

00:35:23: What do you try to accomplish by doing this?

00:35:25: Often the answer is to understand yourselves better!

00:35:30: There need not be anything wrong with that as long as we're being honest about what were doing and not being exploitative.

00:35:34: but so often where you know in Western anthropology We were not honest About what?

00:35:39: Were doing, and we were being expletive.

00:35:40: So is that?

00:35:41: yeah?

00:35:42: And then if we talk about understanding ourselves better as he said at the beginning of this episode That how it can help to learn about learning about how to deconstruct things, learning about history of things.

00:35:55: Learning the way discussing these things

00:35:57: and it's always double-sided like Margaret Mead is one of the characters in The Book right?

00:36:01: Margaret Meade Is a Bisexual woman who at A moment Of Doing a PhD thesis And At A Moment of kind of Emotional Crisis Where She's Being sort of Torn Between Her Husband and a Female Lover Goes To Samoa where she declares that because it's a very simple culture, you can learn everything about Samoa and culture in eight weeks.

00:36:24: And imagine saying I could move to Paris and understand all of Paris in eight-weeks right?

00:36:32: Wouldn't you know?

00:36:33: what she goes to Samoa finds is young women in Samoa are very sexually free and open and don't have this neurotic hang ups with sex.

00:36:42: I read that as Margaret Mead goes to people she understands being her predecessors or ancestors in order to find out, basically in order attempt to free herself from the conundrum.

00:36:59: And then this becomes a standard text about how people of these parts are and live.

00:37:11: people from in the South Pacific discuss.

00:37:14: Going to you know being sort of the first people from these communities too To have a university education and they go to their anthropology class And they read about the island that there are from in Margaret Mead books, and say like what the hell is she talking?

00:37:26: About this makes no sense.

00:37:28: Um-and literally one Of them says yeah my grandmother remembered Marguerite Meade came and She was annoying.

00:37:32: so we just did The weirdest stuff We could think up until she went away Right!

00:37:37: And then but Then the professor he Says well No This Is What's There Like In order to pass the test You Have To Say This and They Know It'S Not True right.

00:37:43: So So, this is the kind of stuff that then when certain discourses dominate we go on this search for self-discovery and in our own search for Self-Discovery end up condemning other people to be misunderstood exploited.

00:38:01: And Mead herself there as part a US Navy expedition right?

00:38:04: She's bringing full weight an imperialist army behind her.

00:38:09: Good news magazine, so good news but the name is bad gay.

00:38:13: So you don't just look at a perfect amazing gays and people out there?

00:38:18: Oh no that would be boring!

00:38:20: Yeah it'd be boring...so why would we call them bad guys then?

00:38:24: Our project started of an attempt-outofa frustration.

00:38:28: both Hugh & I had That.

00:38:31: all around us We were having The most interesting rich deep conversations about Queer life, the kinds of conversations that we're having now.

00:38:40: Right?

00:38:40: These are the conversation We were having with our friends these are the books That we were reading this whatever.

00:38:45: then whenever you turn to the mainstream media Whenever You turned to a to an or sort of main-media outlet and This was in this moment that maybe Now is ending Where you know kind Of Mainstream Media discovered queer Everything you saw Was at this one oh One level.

00:39:02: everything was you Know top ten heroes of this Top five Whatever.

00:39:05: it was all very Very boring and reactionary, and stupid.

00:39:12: And so we thought okay there has got to be a way to have more nuanced and complicated conversation.

00:39:21: still bring people along with us.

00:39:24: The title was Hughes but the idea is if you focus on people that no one can claim as heroes.

00:39:31: And we started out real evil, and now we've kind of opened up to evil and complicated as our remit.

00:39:37: But that means that we're starting by having a complicated conversation—we are always having a complicated conversation!

00:39:44: —and we're telling... We're hanging that complicated conversation about all the things that we have been talking on this conversation The narratives and the stories of really interesting lives, right?

00:39:59: We're talking about Lawrence of Arabia.

00:40:01: we are talking about Roger Casement who goes to investigate colonial misdoings in Africa South America and brings along two sets of diaries one set in which he writes down his sort of journalistic observations And another set where?

00:40:17: He notes every man.

00:40:18: He has sex with how big the dick was, and how much you paid.

00:40:21: We talk about Margaret Mead.

00:40:22: we talked about Ernst Röhm who is one of the founders at The Nazi Party essentially openly gay.

00:40:28: You know when

00:40:31: I read the chapter about Ernströhm What's to know about Ernst Röhm and what happened with Hitler in the Nazi Party.

00:40:43: The chapter was just really, really mind-blowing.

00:40:46: Everybody should buy this book or read it but especially for Germans is so important!

00:40:52: It's nice that you say if anyone watching works at a German publishing house their rights are available.

00:40:57: So If You Want This Translated – fifty thousand copies sold already In English Spanish & Italian translations out.

00:41:03: Thai Is In The Works.

00:41:04: We Would Love A German Translation But

00:41:07: please do all the advertising in the world.

00:41:10: I think we don't have time to go into Antwerp's life, but he is obviously one of maybe worst people when you talk about bad guys

00:41:19: He's my go-to for like the worst person they ever talked about.

00:41:23: So why on Good News Magazine?

00:41:24: Why would i want be an empowered person?

00:41:28: You know when I'm just starting to read about?

00:41:32: Maybe you bought.

00:41:32: I learned in school always a little bit, you know one-dimensional?

00:41:36: I wouldn't say stupid by one dimensional and I need more perspective And more more depth to it.

00:41:41: why should I start with people like answering?

00:41:43: I mean let me be very clear To anyone listening that if you're looking for uplifting empowering good news This is maybe not the place turn on.

00:41:51: our podcast may not place to turn but i think It's Always Good News When People Start to Engage with reality in a kind of grown-up way.

00:42:02: I think it's always good news when we... And, and i think its also really deeply rewarding—I don't know about empowering but there is definitely this real reward to it too especially at moment where everything in the world conspiring make us stupid and passive consumers.

00:42:23: The tech companies have now gotten to point that they want actually replace our brains with large language models, to refuse that in a really kind of active way and actually attempt to engage with truth.

00:42:40: It sounds very high-minded but it is And it's not that always feels great in the moment, but over time like anything else.

00:42:55: Like exercising or learning how to ride a bike... Over time it ends up feeling wonderful and being deeply rewarding in way of being passive consumer of media isn't.

00:43:10: Absolutely!

00:43:11: But I would like if you allow me because we have two Unfortunately, we have to end this episode.

00:43:16: So I would love to dump something down in the end.

00:43:20: so for me it was empowering.

00:43:21: not just rewarding but empowering.

00:43:23: why?

00:43:24: To take the worst example and swim to learn about The fact that he For example with In some way in the beginning quite Accepted or felt very accepted from the Nazi party a part of the Nazi Party maybe Hitler himself And was

00:43:42: dumb

00:43:42: enough or ignorant enough to think that he would be safe and then a person who therefore discriminated other people.

00:43:56: And I'll add this, I think Jens Spahn in Alice Fidel should Google him every day!

00:44:01: That's exactly what I wanted to say.

00:44:03: And this is something very empowering in the sense of saying we need to stick together, stop with it like everybody just doing their work and there... We need to work together or deconstruct.

00:44:15: what are you doing?

00:44:17: You're giving so many examples!

00:44:18: You give such inspiring lessons.

00:44:21: So thank-you for that complicated conversation.

00:44:23: Glad you find it inspiring.

00:44:25: Thank you so much for having me.

00:44:26: Thank you very much for being here, taking the time.

00:44:28: Is there something before I let you go that do want to add?

00:44:34: or maybe what would be?

00:44:37: Do you wanna talk about?

00:44:37: projects are to come

00:44:39: sure.

00:44:40: so if You like The sound of my voice and you want to hear me speaking with a very Malif Lewis Quaker from Cumbria.

00:44:49: You can, wherever you're listening to this podcast find Bad Gaze when your hearing it.

00:44:53: we should be about launch or have just launched our ninth season.

00:44:58: so please take a listen that each episode is one person profile's one-person there but forty five minutes long and uh... please do enjoy that if want learn more of the project.

00:45:08: thats all at badgazepod dot com personal website has been writes things.

00:45:14: I'm also Ben rights thing on relevant social media so you can find more about me and my work there.

00:45:24: Thank.