Jon Rowe has a really, really good post on the subject of "gay studies" programs and currricula. As many of you may know, the religious right is up in arms at the moment about a bill in the California legislature that would require schools to teach "the contributions of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender to the economic, political, and social development of California and the United States of America.'' I find myself in almost total agreement with him that, while we shouldn't do anything like demanding "equal time", the fact is that gays have had an extraordinarily disproportionate influence on Western civilization as it is and that should be acknowledged.
Jon includes two terrific quotes that give a sense of just how profound the contributions of gay people have been in the formation and development of the Western canon and culture. The first is from Bruce Bawer:
It's also confining, for there's no part of the cultural landscape without a gay element. Even if gays constitute as much as fifteen percent of the population, the gay contribution to Western art, architecture, music, and literature far exceeds what it should be statistically. If you accept the right-wing claim that only one in a hundred people is gay, then the gay contribution is truly extraordinary. Think about it: A group comprising one percent of the population producing Erasmus, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Marlowe, Bacon, Hölderlin, Hans Christian Andersen, Tchaikovsky, Proust ... the list goes on and on to include three of the four major nineteenth-century American novelists, one (perhaps both) of the two great nineteenth-century American poets, and two of the three most noted mid-twentieth-century American dramatists.
The other is from Judge Richard Posner:
A person who knows that James I, Francis Bacon, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, Marcel Proust, Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E.M. Forster, Pyotr Illich Tchaikovsky, George Santayana, T.E. Lawrence, Alan Turing, and Ludwig Wittgenstein were homosexuals, and that Sophocles, Socrates, Plato, Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Richard the Lion-Hearted may have been, is not so likely to believe that homosexuality is merely a ghastly blight.
That leads to several interesting comments as well. Dan makes a compelling argument:
It seems to me that the real tragedy of gay studies is that misconstrues the achievement of the individual by defining it in terms of their sexuality. Was it the "gay economist" who invented macro-economics, or was it that Keynes happened to be gay? This distinction probably has many people cringing, due to the fact that similar labeling distinctions (i.e. disabled people vs. people with disabilities) tend to smack of what some would refer to as PC nitpicking. From my personal perspective, that of being gay and involved in collegiate athletics (albeit in Canada), this is an important distinction. What does my being gay have to do with my achievement in sport? Nothing, that's what. Therefore when people refer to me as a gay athlete the emphasis is now placed on my sexuality. I don't define myself by my sexuality nor, I am sure, would many of those listed.
But even with that undoubtedly being true, I don't think it's a bad idea for teachers to mention this staggering record of contributions to Western culture. It serves two purposes. First, it's true - and that's the most important thing. But secondly, it has the benefit of perhaps making gay teenagers feel like they're not the freaks so many think they are. I know those who are anti-gay object to any attempt to do that, but as long as it has the virtue of being true, I don't think they have much of a case to make. The schools need not cover up an important fact of history in order to appease their bigotry.
I'm curious to hear other opinions on this, and opinions on why it is gays are so over-represented in terms of their contributions to the culture. I would suggest that part of the reason may indeed be the fact that homosexuality has been traditionally looked down upon in the West. That fact forces gays out of the mainstream and therefore undermines the casual and lazy acceptance of the prevailing norms that tends to define most people. The rejection of those norms may well push a larger proportion of gays to question, challenge and rethink things in a wide range of areas. Any thoughts?
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A couple of thoughts...
It seems to me that people are much too quick to conclude that many of the contributions to Western culture were made by gays. Apart from explicit declarations by the historical figures, such conclusions about them are subjective in nature (yet certainly based on objective data). The problem with such conclusions is that they are typically made in the light of a 21st century Western mindset. In other words, it has become difficult for us to view two males as having a close friendsip without considering them to be gay. Historically, in Western culture, this was not the case. Indeed, there are some who propose that Abraham Lincoln was gay, not because of any explicit statements, but essentially because he, at one time, shared a bed with another man.
I'm also wondering just what the connection is, if there is one, between a person's contribution to Western culture and their being gay. If there is a deterministic basis, then perhaps science will enlighten us with the data. If not, then why the need to highlight the fact (if it is a fact)? A black leader recently stated that, in a sense, having a black history month doesn't work towards equality, but simply perpetuates the "difference" between blacks and whites.
Rusty Lopez
Just curious as to how teaching the contributions of gay persons through history is so different from pausing whenever one is discussing myriad historical figures in order to mention that they were gay. One would think that having a subject address gayness through history provides a better coverage of the material than mentioning: "Turing blah blah mathematics blah blah computer science blah blah oh and he was gay!" I don't know about you, but if a teacher said that to me, I'd be nominating them for random person of the year award.
Not to minimise the roles of gay folks, but I guess next we also need to acknowledge the role of the mentally ill, cf Kay Jamison's "Touched by Fire"
After all, the mentally ill teenagers face many of the same hurdles that gay teenagers face.
While that is an impressive list of folks, is there any evidence that gays are disproportionally represented in whatever measure is used to create these lists?
For every Tchaikovsky and Bernstein, there are hundreds of composers who are not gay.
"For every Tchaikovsky and Bernstein, there are hundreds of composers who are not gay...."
No doubt there is some dot connecting to do, but when you see the list of those composer who are gay, you might conclude that gays are as overrepresented among the great composers as blacks are in basketball.
I'm somewhat conflicted about this situation. On the one hand, my automatic response to situations like this is "oh, not more bloody positive discrimination", with a side-order of "is it really a good idea to start ranting about sexuality at every opportunity?".
On the other hand, with this more than most situations, I can see why positive discrimination might be necessary. Black folks used to get treated like crap, but at least it wasn't generally claimed that they were actively evil in nature. That's something that it'd be great to nip in the bud.
Of course, that gets me wondering whether it's actually acceptable to use schools to push an agenda. If people believe that homosexuals are evil then, as long as they don't act on that belief, does the government have a right to interfere?
That's funny. Perhaps they should have said all the bill does is give teachers the option of "teaching the controversy".
I'm also conflicted about it. I'm leaning toward disagreement with it.
I'm of a mind that we don't know enough about human sexuality to even precisely define the term "gay." In Sparta, for example, all men were encouraged to have sex with each other to build the bond of brotherhood that is so important in war; they lived apart from their wives, and snuck into their wives' bed chambers in the dead of night, so as not to get a good look at their faces (and probably to act out a sort of rape ritual. Other Greeks (and Romans, especially) were notoriously eclectic in their sexual preferences.
It seems to me the modern Western concept of "gay" is largely a creation of Protestant Christian prudery. Now, there are other homophobic traditions (Islam, frex). But that only means they have created the same sort of restrictive definition of homosexuality.
In a culture in which homosexuality is an abomination, you restrict the set of people who are "homosexual" to its smallest possible set. In a culture more accepting of same-sex sex (e.g., Sparta), you might wind up restricting heterosexuals to the smallest possible set (those people who are so closed to same-sex sex that they are flatly unwilling to engage in it). In between are a large set of people who are neither one nor the other (or somewhat of both), but fit into their cultural norms.
Now, if this thesis is correct (I'm not saying it is), it might be the case that "homosexuality" isn't over-represented. It is just that our culture has such a narrow definition of homosexuality that it blinds us to normal human sexuality.
I would oppose 'gay studies' in public schools because it smacks of propaganda, but I do like the idea of simply telling the whole truth about historical figures. A gay kid sitting in class won't miss the teacher saying "Leonardo DaVinci singlehandedly pushed scientific and artistic insights forward by centuries, while balancing external and religious pressures and not letting the wrong people know that he was gay."
I like the idea the being gay forces an individual out of the mainstream to look at things from another angle. Being dyslexic has done something similar for me, though I am no Leonardo. And this poses another pedagogical reason for not having characteristic-specific studies. Aside from isolating what it would try to include, should we have a unit on "dyslexic scientists, poets, and artists"? We already make that mistake with black, female, etc.
It would be worth telling kids that many prominent people are different in various ways, for just the reason you mention. Because, almost all prominent historical figures ARE different in some way.
Black folks used to get treated like crap, but at least it wasn't generally claimed that they were actively evil in nature. That's something that it'd be great to nip in the bud.
I wouldn't write off that blacks were never claimed to be evil in nature. It came right after they had gotten beyond being subhuman and savage, but before being three fifths human stage.
It occurs to me that this is not the only situation in which the historical oppression of a group has resulted in artistic achievement in one form or another by the natural action of reaction. Many have argued, for example, that the enormous number of Jewish comedians is a result of having developed humor as a response to not being allowed in the mainstream of society. And perhaps a more obvious example would be the music of blues, a quintessentially American art form that grew directly out of the slave experience and almost certainly would not have existed had the circumstances been different. Which is not to argue, of course, that we should be encouraging more oppression in order to foster artistic achievement; it is to argue that the human capacity for turning tragedy into beauty is enormously underappreciated.
the religious right justifiably fears that california bill. my own formerly anti-gay ideas began to fade away when i first actually met and befriended a few gay people. though the people met in the classroom are historical, the result should be the same: a big disconnect between the theory (gays are evil) and the facts (gays are just normal people).
I think you're exactly right, wheeler. That is the fear, that their children will fear gays less and view them as normal if they knew how many of them had contributed so greatly to the Western canon.
I would oppose 'gay studies' in public schools because it smacks of propaganda, but I do like the idea of simply telling the whole truth about historical figures. A gay kid sitting in class won't miss the teacher saying "Leonardo DaVinci singlehandedly pushed scientific and artistic insights forward by centuries, while balancing external and religious pressures and not letting the wrong people know that he was gay."
That would be wonderful. Problem is, it'd be a bugger to implement. What would you tell the teachers? "Oh, and if you could just let slip that person X was gay without making a big thing of it"? The non-homophobic teachers probably already do that; the homophobic ones will flatly refuse. So legislation ain't gonna do anything other than inflame the nutjobs.
What evidence is there that Socrates might have been gay? I have never heard that before.
That would be wonderful. Problem is, it'd be a bugger to implement. What would you tell the teachers? "Oh, and if you could just let slip that person X was gay without making a big thing of it"?
Feh...the wingnuts would STILL say that you're promoting the gay agenda....
The only thing that'd satisfy them is neglect, preferably malign....
KeithB said:
I tend to agree. While I fully support gay rights and recognize their achievements, I think the case is far from being made that those achievements are disproportionately large. Listing a few dozen famous names is not exactly a convincing statistical argument. For all I know the theory could be true; I'm just saying you kind of threw it out there with only the most superficial evidence to support it. It would be interesting, indeed, to see a more rigorous study of this idea that included thousands of the most important people in history (chosen on objective grounds of course).
Ed, you write that "Dan makes a compelling argument," and then quote his statement "that the real tragedy of gay studies is that [it] misconstrues the achievement of the individual by defining it in terms of their sexuality."
I haven't read too extensively in "gay studies," but I must say I've never read anything in that area where the writer "defines" an individual's "achievement in terms of their sexuality."
The usual tack is to argue that the work and life of the gay/lesbian individual in question has hitherto been improperly understood because scholars have denied or skirted the issue of their homosexuality, and then to explore the ways in which their homosexuality mattered. One might argue, for example, that unless you first understand that Willa Cather was a lesbian you can't adequately explain the relationship between her characters Antonia Shimerda and Jim Burden (in "My Antonia"). Jim loves Antonia, yet never hooks up with her and winds up instead in a loveless marriage with someone else. Why? Perhaps the best explanation is that he is a stand-in for Cather herself, unable to marry the one he truly desires and forced to sublimate his desire, as Cather did, into nonsexual forms of creative endeavor.
Not that you have to concur with such a reading--I offer it merely as an example of the way a "gay studies" literary critic might proceed: not by simplistically reducing authors to their sexuality, but by exploring the ways in which their sexuality might actually matter to our understanding of their life and work.
I doubt that anyone in gay studies would argue that Keynes's sexuality was particularly relevant to his economics. But Walt Whitman's sexuality was certainly relevant to our understanding of his poetry. I loved Whitman's work when I was in high school, but I had no idea he was gay (nor that Shakespeare addressed many of his sonnets to a man, nor that the ancient Greeks practiced pederasty) until I was in graduate school. These things simply weren't mentioned, with the result that I grew up ignorant of them. I see nothing wrong with trying to prevent that sort of ignorance.
Matthew, if you're interested in the question of Socrates and homosexuality, read up a bit on Greek pederasty, and then read Plato's "Symposium"--especially the end, where Alcibiades describes his unsuccessful attempts to seduce Socrates. But remember that it would be anachronistic to say either of these figures was homosexual; the notion of homosexuality as a same-sex sexual attraction central to one's identity did not really exist until the second half of the nineteenth century.
David Mazel wrote:
I don't think I was very clear at all about my thoughts on this in the post. I certainly agree that there are many people, especially writers, for whom a real understanding of their work requires understanding their sexual orientation and how it affected them and those around them. I would say, however, that most of the time such considerations are probably more complex than what would be discussed in a high school class anyway and it's more appropriate for a college setting. But I think what Dan was saying was a bit different than that. I think he was saying that if the entire theme is based around pointing out all the gay people in a wide variety of fields, we end up having them identified solely as "gay artists" rather than as individuals. And there I tend to agree with him.
Not being gay myself, I can't be certain of how I would feel if I was, but I know that most of the gays I know flinch at the notion of being thought of as a member of the "gay community" or grouped in with other gays in that manner. They are individuals, not members of a category, and if the only thing they have in common with another person is that they're both attracted to men, that isn't much at all. It's such an irrelevant characteristic in most ways that it makes no more sense to group Gore Vidal, Tchaikovsky and Leonardo da Vinci together as members of the category "gay" holds no more meaning than grouping them together as "dark haired people" or "blue eyed people". That really is one of the reasons why homophobia continues to plague our society, because being gay is viewed as the dominant trait a person can have, when in fact they would be much more accurately included in more meaningful categories like "smart people" or "good singers".
I certainly agree with you that it seems quite absurd to study Walt Whitman or WH Auden's poetry without talking about their sexuality; their poetry is enormously influenced by it. But I don't think that means it's a good idea to put those two, and all the people above, into a curriculum called "Great gay people in history" or some such thing. But I do certainly agree that in many cases, it should be mentioned and discussed as part of what influenced them as individuals.
I agree that it's pretty silly to subject high school kids to a textbook chapter called "Great Gay People in History." All self-respecting teenagers would naturally roll their eyes at that. I think a better way to achieve the desired objective would be to revise textbooks so that they include information about sexuality where appropriate. For example, a modern history textbook might add a sidebar about Alan Turing that described his role in developing computer science and helping defeat the Nazis. As part of a brief biography, the text could mention that Turing was gay and that homophobia is believed to have prompted his suicide at age 41. Students could draw their own conclusions. A humanities textbook could do something similar with Tschaikovsky.
The idea would be to bring up sexuality in context and only when it matters. You're right that in most cases a person's sexuality is an irrelevant characteristic, but when it is relevant, as when discussing the life of Tschaikovsky or Turing, or the poetry of Whitman, etc., then it seems almost criminal NOT to mention it and explain its significance.
As I said above, I didn't learn that Whitman was gay until I was in grad school. That was long after I got married, which I mention only because as part of my wedding ceremony my bride and I read some of our favorite lines from Leaves of Grass, and neither of us had any idea that some of those beautiful expressions of love were directed by the poem's speaker to another man. Not that this mattered in and of itself; I believe that love is love, regardless of object choice. But I do wonder now if there weren't better educated people at my wedding, smiling knowingly to themselves as we naively recited those lines.
I agree with you in part when you write that the recent emphasis on gay self-identification "is one of the reasons why homophobia continues to plague our society, because being gay is viewed as the dominant trait a person can have, when in fact they would be much more accurately included in more meaningful categories like 'smart people' or 'good singers.'"
But of course that cuts both ways. Oppression makes a member of any minority group identify more strongly with the group. And it's hard to seek redress for your grievances without calling attention to your minority status. Homophobes begin the cycle by oppressing gay people qua gay people. Gay people respond, logically enough, by proposing legislation that protects them against discrimination on the basis of their sexuality. That very process of banding together to fight for their rights deepens their own sense of group identity, which in turn can inflame their enemies.
I wouldn't blame gay activists for this, however, since I don't see how they could pursue equality while simultaneously arguing that sexuality is irrelevant. The argument that sexuality SHOULD be irrelevant is obviously predicated on the fact that at present it is not irrelevant. In the political, cultural, and legal arenas right now, sexuality is necessarily tremendously relevant, and must remain so until legal equality has been achieved--which I'm hopeful will be within a decade or two.
David Mazel wrote:
I just want to point out that this is not at all what I meant. I don't blame that on gay self-identification at all. In fact, I think the mere fact that more people are now comfortable self-identifying as gay is an enormous benefit to society in many ways, and certainly a much better situation for gay people. The problem is not with gay self-identification, it's with the obsession others have with defining them only as gay. There are so many other traits an individual has that are far more important. A homophobe looks at Jon Rowe or Jason Kuznicki and sees only the fact that they're gay, and that trumps all of the other wonderful qualities they have. They never allow themselves to see smart or funny or compassionate or talented because they write "GAY" in 40 foot letters. And the sad fact is that they miss out on a lot of really great people themselves as a result.
The problem with word Gay, is that people tend to focus on the sex part of it, and forget that the word itself has changed to embrace a definition that is cultural; and in the mad rush to be seen as progressive and liberal, our sexuality is sanitised and deemed irrelevant to who we are [that is another post].
Straight people, just don't see it, because they are not a minority and they never have to question their sexuality in the same Gays and Lesbians do; their sexuality is CONSTANTLY validated on TV, in the media, in print, in song, in action, in families ad infinitum; their sexuality is implicit no questions asked - by extension heterosexuality is automatically assumed.
So when a great love story is told in a book, in song, or on the silver screen, how often is it going to be about the one between a man and a woman?
So the first mistake people make about the word Gay is to focus on the fact that we sleep with a person of the same gender. Yes, it is correct to say that who we sleep with does not the sum of us make, but the word GAY has taken on a broader definition now.
That is the problem upon which the use of the word rests. Defining Gay only in terms of the gender we sleep with and not the social and culture definition it has come to embrace: being Gay is also about HOW we relate to people, especially make to male relationships. Afterall, the one thing being Gay and Lesbian does is subvert the dominant social construct of male and female upon which our various cultures rest.
To teach GAY STUDIES is a perfectly valid proposition.
Apart from correcting the historical record, making it more truthful and a more accurate representation, and providing a differing viewpoint to the dominant heterosexist hegemony.
Any study of Gay and Lesbian history and culture is gonna challenge the heterosexual hegemony and open up questions regarding HOW we were treated in history, and WHY we were treated like that.
However, you would be correct to state that you cannot frame past cultures in terms of today's definition. But that does not mean there is no commonality between The Ancients Greeks say, and the modern Gay.
After all, the continuing strand is same sex love. Gay and Lesbian stduies would show its treatment over the years and the differing cultural contexts.