Letters
In Defense of Michael Moore Editors: In his article "The Perils of Michael Moore," Kevin Mattson correctly describes his subject as America's most prominent leftist," a person "living and...
...In the midst of the current American occupation of Iraq and related saber-rattling elsewhere in the world, I'm glad that Bowling for Columbine is still playing in local movie theaters— no matter how "decontextualized" its historical account of U.S...
...At best indifferent and at worst querulous before the aspirations and achievements of the gay rights movement, Dissent frequently has lagged behind other progressive journals and magazines when it comes to matters of gay and lesbian concerns...
...In an age when the public intellectual is embodied by prejudices of the likes of Fox News Network's Bill O'Reilly or MSNBC's Michael Savage, we are in dire need of our own blowhard...
...In my experience, Moore has been quite supportive of labor activists seeking "long-term political solutions" that go beyond the humorous shtick of trying to confront big business bad guys in the lobby of their office building— a frequently used confrontational tactic of unions and community groups, by the way...
...Hal Draper was the last editor of the paper, which ceased publication in 1958...
...On the policy issues that most directly affect gays and lesbians today: adoption rights, hospital visitation rights, the right to marry, the right to serve in the military, Sullivan and Goldstein are not in substantial disagreement...
...If we had two, three, many Michael Moores, we'd be better off—and the original article wouldn't have to bear the brunt of academic carping that does indeed "sound like sour grapes...
...Where, Gitlin asks, might the "talented liberal loudmouths learn to raise their voices, overcome their ambivalence and mop the floor with the right's shoddy arguments...
...Those poor, deluded gay radicals, eager to manufacture a progressive critique out of their "private" and "aesthetic" erotic selves but doomed to "navel-gazing...
...Moore's genius is, in fact, exactly the type of populist anti-intellectualism that Mattson is worried about...
...Moore compares neither to Abbie Hoffman nor Charlie Chaplin, but that's another argument...
...I'm not an acquaintance of Moore but I'm sure, like most of us, he has his share of personal and professional shortcomings...
...It was adopted by Congress in 1940 and was first used against Trotskyists, members of the Socialist Workers Party and their supporters in Minneapolis Teamsters Local 544, rather than communists...
...To cite a typical example: "When a man becomes gay, he gains 20 IQ points...
...But I wasn't taking him to task for that aspect of his analysis...
...To hold a figure like Moore responsible for that strikes me as sensible, maybe even, God forbid, necessary...
...Seymour Yellin takes us to task for getting Max Shachtman's name wrong in Joe Gladstone's tribute letter for Gordon Haskell (Spring 2003) and points out that Gordon did not become editor of Labor Action in 1950, but was the business manager and a contributor...
...Letters must be no more than 500 words, typed, double-spaced, and carry the full address and name of the sender...
...Why can't there be a vast, wonderful division of labor within progressive politics today...
...Early doesn't...
...And so much for the efforts of progressive critics to attempt to locate in our unstated cultural and social assumptions the causes for incidents such as the killing of Matthew Shepard and numerous other hate crimes...
...As I think this exchange proves, we aren't there yet...
...Ideas do have consequences and implications...
...Right now, I don't see it...
...JEFFERSON COWIE Ithaca, N.Y...
...I never deny that part of Sullivan's or Paglia's LETTERS popularity can be linked to establishment unease or ambivalence about homosexuality...
...Or is it wrong or just nitpicking to accuse him of political cynicism when he uses the term "Republicrats"—an idea that plenty of young people took up to vote George W. Bush, I mean Ralph Nader, into office, seeing as Gore was no different from Bush (except on abortion, Social Security, international politics, and other unimportant matters...
...The most important and original of these is that the popular media prefer to highlight and promote the views of gay conservatives out of a deep anxiety and animosity toward gay people that are pervasive in American culture, even among the so-called "liberal elite...
...Worse, according to Mattson, Moore is actually "dangerous" because he is silly enough to believe that being a comedic rabble-rouser is actually a political statement...
...The big difference between us and Moore, however, is that intellectuals can remain safe and smug and puritanical about what others, like Michael Moore, are doing to try to fight back...
...I was pointing out a misquotation...
...But this season the whole team—along with the sports staffs of the Boston Herald and the Boston Globe—finds itself roiled by the question of the proper response to tyranny in the Middle East, as if the Bosox had somewhow mistaken themselves for the editorial board of Dissent...
...Bob Berens Replies Richard Kaye's reaction to seeing a critical take on gay leftism in the pages of Dissent, in the absence of a substantial positive tradition, is understandable...
...The fact that she is a Democrat and he a Republican doesn't preclude their adherence to a common sexual politics...
...For some inexplicable reason, it seems that what leftwing intellectuals do with someone who emerges from the shadow of obscurity and seriousness that defines the left today is to attack him...
...In the context of addressing a liberal audience, it's the difference between being provocative and being off-the-charts offensive...
...I should stop "nitpicking" and be joyful that Moore's Bowling for Columbine is in the movie theaters, even if Moore gets things wrong and spins out a thesis that I find at best incomprehensible and at worst irresponsible (notice there's no defense of Moore's argument in the film, simply that it's in theaters...
...Letters will not be returned to senders unless they are accompanied by stamped, selfaddressed envelopes...
...he asks...
...On Homocons and Misreadings Editors: It's not often that Dissent focuses on issues related to gay and lesbian politics...
...He is one of the most outspoken critics of corporate power in this country, someone who continues to amaze allies and critics alike with his ability to say and do the things that he does—and still receive commercial airplay...
...I don't dispute that Paglia may be hostile to the language of gay self-identification, but I do wonder why Goldstein felt the need to amp up such elements of her work through the compression and, I'd argue, conscious distortion of her words...
...NOTE: The writer is an international representative for the Communications Workers of America...
...Clearly this is another of her attacks on female-centered sexuality...
...Needless to say, the editors of Dissent would be unlikely to allow a writer to declare in its pages that, on the subject of, say, women's rights or racism or anti-Semitism, an "honest" debate drawing on explicitly sexist, racist, or anti-Semitic assumptions is welcome...
...Indeed, Moore has the number-oneselling nonfiction book of 2002, received an Academy Award for best documentary film, has made serious inroads into mainstream media outlets, and has made what is probably the single biggest statement against the war...
...One has to conclude that Richard Goldstein's argument is not radical enough...
...But his gift is to stake out a common sense position and, with an earnestness that gets him through all sorts of power gauntlets, find ways to query the powers that be...
...This view is echoed, incidentally, in Eric Alterman's recent What Liberal Media?, which, like Goldstein's book, questions the popular media's preference for conservative gay pundits...
...The truly strange thing is that Mattson's arguments could just as easily be turned on the academic left: we have lots of books and interesting ideas, we dabble in causes, but where's the movement...
...If the left is going to win anything—especially the next generation of young people—it is going to have to get its hands dirty in the world of pop and commercial culture...
...Isn't it wiser to reach some consensus on a few key issues...
...Isn't it just as "dangerous" and "cynical" to over-intellectualize politics as it is to poke fun at it...
...Mattson continues the pattern...
...I'm afraid it still has legs...
...Would they take off the gloves and remind their audiences who their opponents are...
...When I worry about the future of the left, it's not because Michael Moore is so prominent, it's because there are not more Moores...
...We reserve the right to edit letters down to fit our space and to choose which shall be printed...
...It is on such grounds that Goldstein's argument against the influence of Sullivan is justified, even essential...
...But the way in which Goldstein distorts Sullivan's arguments, and pathologizes his conservatism as inverted self-hatred is, to me, not so easy to ignore...
...We are unable to acknowledge letters...
...Unlike the hand wringing that passes for progressive politics in the journals, that's a platform that will save the left...
...RICHARD GOLDSTEIN New York, N.Y...
...As someone who lives in one of the most liberal parts of the country, I understand that homophobia and discrimination are relatively muted here, and that I owe much of my own comfort and freedom to the struggles of activists and radicals of the past...
...By ignoring many statements like these, Berens can claim that I misrepresented the intention of Paglia's comment urging lesbians to "open that thing toward men...
...At its core is a mystification of macho...
...There is a consistent strain of implicit—and explicit—sexism in Paglia's writings, and it is fair to point out that the "mythopoeic" mode with which she expresses it disarms most consumers of her work...
...Todd Gitlin, in the American Prospect (February 2003), has lamented the lack of lefty bigmouths to penetrate the thicket of right-wing commentary on the DISSENT / Summer 2003 n 107 LETTERS airwaves...
...He claims that I "distort or ignore" Goldstein's central thesis, but neglects to point out any contradiction between his reading and my own...
...But masculinism is a defining principle of modern conservatism, homo and hetero alike...
...Some people write books, some people make cool movies, some people write poems, some people run for city council, some people do research, some people teach school, some or108 n DISSENT / Summer 2003 ganize movements...
...I agree with Cowie's conclusion to let a thousand flowers bloom in progressive politics...
...He overlooks the ample evidence of her contempt for lesbianism...
...It's also those who like to see themselves as members of the party of Dissent...
...But as satisfying as it may feel to label gay conservatives—or African-American conservatives, for that matter—as traitors to their kind, I don't think it's a productive contribution to the discourse of minority rights...
...It's predictable because one of the things the left does best is to eat itself alive with its own brand of sabertoothed criticism...
...it is a personal and an aesthetic understanding of self, better suited to a navel-gazing memoir than a radical polemic...
...Editors: Kevin Mattson's critical appraisal of "Michael Moore's Message" in your Spring 2003 issue was one of the most exasperating exercises in political nitpicking that I've seen in a long time...
...Is it ERRATA Our thanks to sharp-eyed readers who pointed out some errors in recent issues...
...Mattson argues that Moore's satirical jousting with various symbols of corporate power reflects "cynicism about the possibility of politics today" and "avoids the hard work of forming movements that could press for change...
...cheaply...
...wrong to say that Moore's playing around with decontextualized imagery and his explanations are wrong...
...We accept e-mail submissions to editors@dissentmagazine.org, but request that you provide a street address and phone number...
...That's easy: they can be found in millions of people who find out that they are not alone in their belief that things are not right with the world and that the messages that the mainstream media are sending them are not connecting the dots...
...Is it wrong for someone who wants to see a strong and responsible left to criticize that...
...It's better to address those problems than to make excuses for people because they happen to have politics similar to ours (or maybe I just can't get down with Moore's "populist anti-intellectualism," as Cowie claims...
...To Letter Writers • We welcome succinct letters from our readers...
...Before The Big One was released several years ago, Moore allowed Jobs With Justice, a workers rights coalition backed by the Communications Workers and other unions, to hold fundraising screenings in Boston and other cities...
...But I also think that intellectuals and critics have a right—indeed a responsibility— to criticize one another...
...Clearly it's not just the popuAN ALL-AMERICAN PASTIME For the Boston Red Sox, the Clubhouse Blowup has over the last quarter-century been as reliable a summer fixture as the August collapse...
...A more serious omission is Berens's failure to deal with a major thesis in my book, which concerns the tie that binds Paglia and Andrew Sullivan...
...Point well taken...
...When a woman becomes gay, she loses 20 IQ points...
...Generally the debates have been over whether Yaz is a fathead or Lynn's a malingerer or Roger deserves his pay...
...Mattson and other critics of Moore, however, are "worried about what happens to the vision of the left when it plays on the grounds of the sound-bite society...
...Berens's blindness to the profound impact of misogyny hearkens back to an old benighted attitude on the left...
...At the time, the communists supported this use of the Smith Act, which was later used against them...
...By the latter standard, how would Mattson judge the practical political effectiveness of most Dissent editorial board members or contributors...
...We would probably agree, for instance, that Senator Rick Santorum's recent comments were hateful and bigoted, but we would almost certainly get into a debate about Eminem...
...Is it wrong to say that Noam Chomsky's accounting of 9/11 was, well, wrong...
...Still, nothing prepared me for Bob Berens's dismissive, confused, and bellicose review of Richard Goldstein's The Attack Queers...
...Though some cases are easy enough to identify, homophobia is often in the eye of the beholder...
...Note that the progressive critique of homophobia is caricatured (dare I point out, in familiar, right-wing terms...
...Myra Russel writes that John Rodden's account of the FBI file on Irving Howe (Fall 2002) misstated the date of the Smith Act...
...Meanwhile, Michael Moore's is a loud, provocative, creative voice in a society that is otherwise absolutely saturated by right-wing blather...
...Mattson should lighten up and stop looking a gift horse in the mouth...
...But the real shocker comes in the last lines of Berens's review where, after instructing readers that there is no possible connection to be found between the political realm and the sphere of sexuality, he mocks as selfindulgent and even pointless any attempt to think about the sources for homophobia in our society and culture: "One can theorize endlessly about the connection between the development of a person's sexuality and political beliefs," snarls Berens, But it's hard to see this relationship as of any political or public value...
...But Mattson wants to know where the tangible victories are...
...As for Richard Goldstein's challenge, I am not in complete disagreement...
...Why is it this way, and why can't it be better...
...Sure, Moore messes with 'reality' in his films," Cowie admits...
...DISSENT / Summer 2003 n III...
...There's certainly plenty of room out there...
...The medium for Moore's messages (muckraking entertainment packaged in prose, oratory, and film) have "distinct limitations," Mattson suggests, that should concern us because it drags the left down into the world of infotainment...
...I in no way meant to suggest that the connection between sexuality and society isn't worth exploring, only that as a standard by which to judge public intellectuals or commentators it falls short...
...Without the `attack queers' Goldstein speaks of, the media discourse DISSENT / Summer 2003 n 109 LETTERS on homosexuality would be a tiresome litany of scolding and sermonizing, rather than an open and honest—and yes, occasionally offensive—debate...
...Moore has the ability to walk a treacherous line between documentary and comedy, between satire and commentary, between farce and reality, between pop and politics...
...As a longtime reader, I have looked in vain in your pages for thoughtful considerations of issues such as AIDS and sexual minorities, gay people in the military, the rise of scholarship known as "Queer Theory," or the new legal theorizing concerning gay rights...
...He argues that Moore's offbeat, in-your-face style is a political failure because he conflates theater with politics and confrontation with long-term solutions...
...So much for the progressive tradition in meditating on the topic of same-sex desire, from Jeremy Bentham and Edward Carpenter to Adrienne Rich and Michel Foucault...
...Does a defense of the so-called "homocons" somehow equal a defense of homophobia...
...Christopher Caldwell, Weekly Standard, April 30, 2003 11 0 n DISSENT / Summer 2003 lar media that harbors conflicted and antagonistic views of homosexual men and women...
...STEVE EARLY Woburn, Mass...
...Like Moore, they are generally not grassroots organizers or movement-builders either but, rather, journalists, professors, critics, and academic researchers who are loosely allied with people who actually do such work...
...The results can be brilliant...
...There is a difference between saying "stop being a lesbian" and saying "I'm not saying stop being a lesbian...
...Despite its occasional brilliance, The Attack Queers left a bad taste, because it scores its points off Sullivan and Paglia et al...
...Mattson is absolutely wrong that Moore is in it for the irony—he's real and we just don't know what to do with that today...
...Jim Hightower and Barbara Ehrenreich are fellow members of this exclusive club...
...The director appeared at several of these well-attended and (for JWJ) lucrative gatherings—giving no sign whatsoever of being "anti-politics" or disengaged from LETTERS working-class struggles for health care reform and unionization...
...There are not many other progressives around at the moment who have the ability to make important political points, humorously and effectively, before a broad audience...
...RICHARD A. KAYE New York, N.Y Editors: Bob Berens's review of my book is grounded in a remarkably obtuse reading of Camille Paglia...
...His final disagreement rests on a misunderstanding of what I was trying to say, for which I may be partially responsible...
...But I don't think his argument fairly represents my review of Richard Goldstein's book...
...Indeed, I find the book interesting and insightful as social and cultural criticism, despite some incidental disagreements...
...Generating a humorous buzz," concludes Mattson, "doesn't shake things up so much as symbolize powerlessness...
...By ignoring this crucial link, which I examine at length, Berens can claim that I chose to attack Paglia and Sullivan out of personal pique...
...He consistently puts forth a potentially unifying message, one that seems to escape those sequestered in the academic left as well as many of those in the weak-kneed Democratic Party...
...Lord, save us if it is...
...For Berens, though, "Gay contrarians such as Paglia and Sullivan . . . offer a valuable public service...
...military intervention may be, according to Mattson...
...Although you can disagree with Moore on policy or candidate choice or a host of other issues, this is exactly the role he already plays and for which we should thank him...
...Then we can organize something, get behind some candidates, stop some injustice, and, who knows, maybe Michael Moore will show up for our rally so thousands of others will find out about the cause...
...Choosing to focus almost entirely on the issue of misrepresentation of quotes (a subject that Goldstein has answered at length in the letters page of the Nation, which published an excerpt from The Attack Queers), Berens deliberately distorts or ignores Goldstein's crucial points...
...In Defense of Michael Moore Editors: In his article "The Perils of Michael Moore," Kevin Mattson correctly describes his subject as America's most prominent leftist," a person "living and espousing CIO style politics...
...It allows that movement's fundamentalist and libertarian wings to cohere...
...Moore repeats the message tirelessly: that the majority of Americans are pro-choice, pro-equal rights, pro-environment, and pro-labor...
...For Paglia, masculinity is the matrix of creativity while lesbianism is "too often intellectually enervating, tending toward the inert...
...But because we have a long lead time for each issue, you have to send us your letter within three weeks of getting an issue of Dissent in order to get it into the next issue...
...What I took issue with was Goldstein's method, not his conclusion...
...Before we collectively light a torch to the work of particular conservatives, reactionaries, and, yes, homophobes, we need first to reach a consensus as to what actually constitutes a homophobic thought or expression...
...It would be more constructive to whatever future the left may have to think, "Isn't it great that Michael Moore is out there raising questions...
...Sure, Moore messes with "reality" in his films, he's often more clever than knowledgeable, and he can be as annoying as endearing...
...Such criticism is mystifying, predictable, and often wrong...
...I would counter that there's only one thing more dangerous: ceding that ground to the snarling rhetoric of the right...
...as shrill, boring, bossy, and dishonest...
...The mystifying part, however, is that to criticize Moore for not being movement based or to accuse him of creating depoliticizing entertainment or to cast him as overtly cynical (or some combination of all three) is to posit some other left that is vibrant, democratic, rich in social movements, and imbued with a positive agenda...
...As for Kaye's contention that I was somehow argu- . ing for a permissive attitude toward public expressions of homophobia, I'm once again tempted to refer him back to what I actually wrote...
...If he would look again, he'd see that I summarize Goldstein's central thesis—that conservative gays are granted disproportionate prominence in the media—and leave it pretty much unchallenged...
...The key is to move beyond a Michael Moore, yesorno presentation of the problem...
...It is one thing to point out flaws and inconsistencies in their opinions or their work...
...Just because she offers a mythopoeic rationale for her view doesn't make it less sexist or phobic...
...Kevin Mattson Replies Before I "lighten up" and accept the "genius" (Cowie) and "gift horse" (Early) that is Michael Moore, just a few words...
...Mattson, however, turns real and imagined flaws in Moore's books, films, and television work into a downside totally disproportionate to their positive impact...
Vol. 50 • July 2003 • No. 3
