Perhaps you're correct; in a perfect world I wouldn't question that. But the old axiom that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is just as accurate as Murphy's Law. As an architect I find renaissance architecture to be (mostly) beautiful, but many of my peers are under the misconception that Gehry's designs are beautiful. They're not. So that's a bit of a conundrum.
Many years ago, I spent a day on assignment with Hickey. He lived in a Las Vegas hi-rise; hung out at a seedy strip diner, and carted me around for a visit to local artists. He was the antithesis of an "art critic." I read all of his books and, hopefully, understood some of them. His essay on why art costs so damn much was brilliant and unexpected.
He's gone now--but the shot he called back in the '90s is all around us: the visual arts are now agitprop--the uglier the better. Here in Portland, the art museum is putting on a show limited to only black (capital B) artists...neo-segregation at its most poignant. Is any of it "beautiful?" Who cares: it's the politics, stupid.
Otherwise, in comment to the whole article, I wonder if the subjectivity of beauty, as in beauty is in the eye of the beholder, doesn't miss the true point about Beauty, which is that it inheres in the structure of reality, as harmony does, and certain vibrational facts do, and there is a more universal quality to it than a particularizing one. I agree that Beauty can't be legislated by institutions or from the top down, but I wonder if it isn't legislated by reality which is why there can be a census across time & space & radically different cultures as to the Beauty of certain forms & compositions & combinations of sounds. To love something or someone & to have passion, intimacy, or tenderness for it doesn't necessarily make it beautiful, but cherished and appreciated & loved for something intrinsic to it but we all have surely experienced passion or compelling interest in things & people that we know aren't beautiful but our love is true anyway precisely because our feeling involves qualities other than beauty. And we shouldn't forget how well internalized cultural norms are & tendencies to conformity, so much so that the "anarchists on Tumblr" aren't freely choosing & expressing the Beautiful but might well be extolling merely what their cohort or the corporate society have told them is desirable and subversive. I'm not too sure that Beauty--expressed & appreciated-is the free for all described. What if the subversive thing is precisely that beauty inheres in the structure of reality meaning that there is indeed an objective world out there for us to attend to and come to know & everything isn't in fact a product of our own consciousness. Anyway, it's a fascinating topic & a very uneasy one to take up today.
Yes, I agree with what you’re saying because to see the beauty is simply in the eye of the beholder just sort of takes away the idea of inherent beauty like you talked about.
As opposed to the other 1000 shows that only showed white artists. Amazing how many of these comments dont understand hickey’s concept of beauty at all. The fact that you dont think this art is beautiful just means its not for you.
Interesting theory, Ted. I agree with most of what you said. I do think there is also more junk around than ever before in all of the arts, as well as more exciting and cutting edge stuff happening everywhere. But the loss of arts education in the schools and the diminishment of enrollment in college music programs is a disaster. Technique, history, theory, ensemble work (in the case of music) still have to be taught from generation to generation. I just prepped the chorus for Mozart's glorious masterpiece the "Great Mass in C Minor," and the audience was about 95% people over 70. Given the vitality of the music and the LIVE communal experience provided, that was extremely disheartening. And in my faculty job I talk to students every day who have NEVER had any kind of arts education (WGU, an online non-profit school) because rural or diverse schools get arts education (and social studies and government) cut before anything else. It's a tragedy.
You are so right and it’s very discouraging. However, there is hope. I play in a couple of music ensembles, consisting mainly of older people who had not played their instrument in years, but missed playing, but also young people who have joined us.
Our town's schools instituted a few decades ago a music requirement that runs from third through tenth grade. It's arranged into a series of choices (instrument, chorus, band, exploratory) that students can change from one year to the next, if they wish -- or they can choose one and stick with it. The eleventh and twelfth grade music activity by the almost-adults is quite healthy, because the menu was laid out and its importance stressed earlier in their school years.
So good. Best I’ve read in ages and something I’ve had on my mind for a while now. I get the sense people have been sort of frozen in their relationship to the arts and creativity in general for a little while, as if singing and painting and poetry are the exclusive ‘gifts’ of the so called ‘stars’, not permitted for anyone ‘commoner’ to experiment with without the permission of the media establishment!
No! We’ve got to take back our birthright which is to express ourselves and paint and sing and make a noise and see what happens. Enough of this self consciousness. We’re taking back beauty!
Beauty is the subversive counter-culture compared to our demoralized culture. Arthur Kwon Lee and the Genesis Council are bringing beauty and universal truths back into art: https://www.arthurkwonlee.com/
Beauty has more than one definition. It usually refers to a societal, or at least collective, standard, and that standard reflects the societal power structure as to what is pleasing to the eye. This type of beauty has always been a form of currency. It also refers to an individual standard which is completely personal and subjective, though it may have been influenced in one way or another by the prevailing societal standard. This type of beauty has always existed and, as the old saying goes, can not be disputed.
I don't think it is beauty that is dangerous. I think the increasing disconnect between our society's standards and our personal standards is more the problem, but this has been a problem in every era. We can look back at the creativity of the 1960s, but, at the time, that was considered artistically an era of vacuous corporate culture and dull conformism. There was a counterculture, and it had its impact. Now it is institutionalized and can be considered part of the problem.
This gets us something of a contradiction. Do we have a counterculture or not? Is Mr. Beast a harbinger of great new art or a sideshow? How much organization is appropriate for a proper counterculture? What do we do when Bandcamp becomes a multi-billion dollar company with its own style, its own impresarios and serious societal power? Are all those artists still indie artists or have they sold out?
These aren't new questions. Mad Magazine addressed them ages ago:
I agree with our host that something new is being born, and that it threatens our society's conventional structures of beauty. To be honest, I suspect that the dynamic is working on two fronts. There is the roots up creation of new means of consumption, and there is top down pressure in the form of increasing government anti-trust action. I know that latter seems divorced from aesthetic matters, but I think it matters more than many suspect.
I discovered Mad when I was about 9 or 10 and started reading it like crazy. It started with a friend's older sister, then went to him, then to me. I didn't fully understand it until perhaps age 14 or 15 and, even then, not till well into adulthood. Unfortunately, there's nothing like that now, unless you count the underhandedly subversive and sharp video games that my son likes to play.
“The three qualities I admire in the poetry I like best are: Accuracy, Spontaneity, Mystery.”
This sentence is a well-known quote by Elizabeth Bishop. For me, these three qualities, when they occur all at once in the same work of art, are the definition of beauty. I love the contradictions! How can something that’s spontaneous also be accurate? How can something that’s accurate also be mysterious?
Thank you for this post about Dave Hickey and beauty--two of my favorite subjects!
We'll return to Glenstone tomorrow for the latest offerings from the proprietors. They do not post words on walls to tell us what we see. They let the artwork do its own emoting. Pretty refreshing. And it is surrounded by meadow and woodland and stream – that is, the REAL beauty.
I've searched many decades for beauty and I know it when I see it, hear it or smell it and most of it is outdoors, not in, and most of that is away from roads, buildings and machine sounds. It's always worth the effort.
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" in a sense, yes. But not in the sense that that phrase is usually taken to mean. There are in fact rational patterns we can discover that correlate strongly with human perception of beauty. So "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" cannot be taken to mean that aesthetics are some kind of purely arbitrary, individualist affair. To the contrary, beauty is "programmed into" the "eye" (and therefore, the brain) of the beholder in certain nonarbitrary ways. See, for example, the famous mathematical physicist-turned-architectural critic Nikos Salingaros's work, such as "box counting" algorithms, for more details.
For me, gender transition had nothing to do with becoming a woman. Of course, you have to say that for the doctors and folks, but what it was really about was wanting to be part of what I found beautiful. And it was worth it.
The unfortunate truth though is that particular beauty is not yours to take part in. You can never truly participate in or experience it. The “beauty” you are experiencing is the beauty of a forgery, maybe it’s high end enough to fool some people who don’t pay too much attention or who don’t care, but there’s nothing authentic about it. I’m sure the people who used to produce and partake in minstrel shows thought that was beautiful too. It wasn’t and what you are doing is modern socially acceptable black face against women. The beauty of African culture is not mine claim, I can appreciate it from afar but I cannot claim it. The same is true of feminine beauty, you cannot claim it to attempt to do so is a forgery.
Alright. This is a discourse, which is something I can at least respect, even if I don't agree. Is it fair to say you believe transgenderism constitutes a sort of violation of intellectual property, or cultural appropriation? I would be delighted to know what it is, exactly, you believe belongs to men that you as a woman should never be allowed to have.
Some might refuse to see me as a man, but if we may agree that I am, I really see nothing to defend myself against if a woman doesn't want to look or act "like a woman." Gender is not a culture. It is not property. Gender is an emergent set of norms within a culture that arises in relation to biological sex. Enforcing those norms is nonsense since every norm is an average of deviations.
Besides, as I stated, "For me, gender transition had nothing to do with becoming a woman." My beauty is not a woman's beauty. You would be the one appropriating if you claimed it for yourself. The truth is, I'm the same as I ever have been - effeminate. The way I walk, talk, sit, stand, and gesture have never been acceptably "manly," despite my best efforts to the contrary, growing up. These are intrinsic parts of my personality that belong to me, not you. When a man or woman undergoes a castration, or a hysterectomy, that's a personal medical choice over one's own body. No ethical imperative binds me to becoming bearded, bald, or hairy when I have always been happier otherwise. Nor does my romantic attraction to men have anything to do with you.
Moreover, in my own community, it's generally women seeking to include me more in their spaces and activities. I recognize their authority to see me as "one of them," even if I'm different. That authority holds for me over that of a stranger.
I’m not entirely sure we can have a productive conversation because I do not grant any of the presuppositions your worldview is based on. Transgenderism is a violation of basic reality and biology, it’s a lie. Basic reality and biology endows certain things on men that it doesn’t endow upon me and the reverse is true. I will never know what it is to be a boy or man because a boy or man is defined by his XY genetics and I do not have a Y chromosome. No matter how many chemicals I pump into my body or how many surgeries I get I won’t know what it is to have a real erection, I won’t know what it is to have to bone structure and density and composition of a man or the lung capacity or a thousand other tiny day to day realities. Trying to eliminate cultural distinctions between men and women doesn’t eliminate the biological reality that we are different.
That said there are plenty of cultural institutions that I have no part in. Men’s bathrooms and prisons come to the top of the list. Any sort of men’s only social group or space. The pulpit or a leadership position in the church. Head of my household. Sure I can demand or force my way into such spaces but I do not belong there even if I pump myself full of testosterone. You have no business being in a women’s bathroom, a women’s prison, or a women’s support group. You would have no business being in a battered women’s shelter. You are not a woman, you’re a cross dressing man.
Your entire worldview seems to be based on the premise that a small number of social scientists from the latter part of the twentieth century had the authority and ability to define gender as different than sex. I do not grant that authority at all. At best the social sciences can describe social situations, they have no business trying to redefine reality. When Caligula castrated an unfortunate young man and dressed him up as the wife he murdered everyone knew the truth. That young man was a eunuch and not a woman. Gender is simply the public outward expression of biological sex and any claim that the two can be uncoupled or different is simply nonsense.
You are not and can never be any sort of woman. You are an effeminate man. Why you would claim to be trans instead of saying you are a cross dressing effeminate gay man is beyond me. I suspect I have a greater respect for your masculine authentic beauty than you do given you appear to have a rather shallow understanding of masculinity and the fact that you have shed that beauty in favor of a feminine beauty that can only ever be fraudulent. It’s interesting to me that you seem to consider being bald, bearded, and hairy as some sort of definition of masculinity. Some of the most stereotypically masculine men are none of those things and I know a good many old women who are all three, or who would be if they didn’t shave or pluck their facial hair. The idea that your masculinity could be defined by your facial hair or the way you walk is strange.
As far as the women who include you, I have some bad news for you. Something that would be incredibly obvious if you were actually a woman. Those women are not your friends. Friends tell you hard truths. Friends would encourage you to express your true masculinity rather than trying to live as a forged version of femininity. You are an accessory to those women. It’s trendy to have a trans woman in your circle right now. Just like in the early 2000s Will and Grace and Sex in the City made having male gay friends a trendy thing to do. The minute that trend goes away or the minute that including you comes at some sort of personal cost they are going to abandon you. You cannot have an authentic relationship built on lies or supporting lies.
It’s not surprising to me that you want to listen to people that are telling you what you want to hear rather than the people who tell you hard truths you don’t want to hear.
Femininity is not a cultural construct that you can appropriate, it is not dresses and makeup and long hair. Femininity is a biological reality and for you to try and claim it for yourself is a destructive lie. You are not a trans woman. You are not any type of woman. You are a cross dressing effeminate gay man. You are playing a high stakes game of dress up and make believe. That’s tragic. You’re pursuing a black face version of womanhood rather than embracing your own beautiful masculinity, a forgery rather than an original, and you think it’s something to celebrate instead of a sign of pitiful self hatred. I feel incredibly sorry for you wasting your life pursuing something you can never have instead of celebrating what you do have.
It’s true this may be a difficult discussion, but less because there are basic fundamental disagreements in our worldview than because of considerable misunderstandings that exist between us. It is precisely for that reason I consider discussion valuable. I do not aim to persuade you against your worldview—I just want to understand precisely what it is, and to clarify what I myself actually believe so that I may be understood. I hope this information will be useful to us both as we navigate these issues in the future.
Your greatest misapprehension is that the transgender community has a unified, monolithic belief structure. The truth is far messier. I see no need to say things like “I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body,” or “transwomen are women.” This is, for me, political rhetoric. I politely nod when people say these things mostly so I can get along with them.
I will sidestep genetics for now—chromosomes are a comparatively recent discover, and while others will split hairs over intersexuality, for me sex would be something obvious even without chromosomes. Sex is an anatomical fact of birth and development that facilitates reproduction. We understand the structure and purpose of a heart even if we replace it with some medical contrivance.
On the other hand, whether or not hormones turn a woman into a man—let’s say “no”—you must surely recognize their biological and psychological affect. What estrogen and testosterone do to mammals is well understood. I remember a transman describing his first experiences with testosterone—“All I wanted was to punch someone, eat a steak, and fuck!”—which brought me instantly back to my own, dreadful experience of puberty. More than any benefit of estrogen, to receive an androgen blocker at 18 was an incalculable relief—freedom from a bitter aggression I could only responsibly turn inward, and the distraction of a perpetual, profoundly uncomfortable, gay libido. It was a return to the comfort in my own skin I had felt prior to puberty.
Hormones don’t make me a woman, but they certainly make me different, biologically, from a cross-dressing effeminate gay man who is not on hormones, and I value that difference. I leave it to anthropologists and the like to label. I assert only that I exist. I can see palpably, in my brother, that had I let testosterone run it’s course, I’d have been bearded, bald, and hairy—and if you’d enjoy being those things, you can have them—but people treat you differently when you’re long haired, lean, and smooth, whether you’re a man or a woman, and that difference is something I welcome. I have always been long-haired, lean and smooth and simply want to stay that way—to be as the angels of a Renaissance painting.
In any case, you have misunderstood my childhood lament at being “insufficiently manly.” The issue was never lack of acceptance that I was myself a boy—it was discipline. Effeminate boys are not treated well. It was always made known to me growing up that everything about me was wrong. “Why do you walk like that?” “Why do you cross your legs when you sit?” “Why do you talk like a girl?” Everything that came naturally was met with hostility. I was called “gay” years before I knew what “gay” meant—only that I didn’t want to be treated that way. Yet on the rare occasions I was mistaken for a girl in boyish clothing—well, certainly the adults were much friendlier. But besides, I liked pretty things, and wanted to be pretty. I never wanted to “be” a girl, but it was obvious if I’d been born such, I wouldn’t be getting beat up for the reasons I was—and then enrolled in a couple martial arts to toughen me up against it.
Perhaps, if in the way we so often indulge tomboys, I’d simply been called “cute”, patted on my little head of long blonde hair, and left to run around in something long and flowy, I’d never have been induced to transition. Every child needs a role-model they can see themselves in—and when I saw my first transwoman on TV, I pretty quickly deduced this was my best chance at happiness. I could be “effeminate,” and only be punished for it if I was found out. But as you say, “transsexualism” was itself a “culture construct”—the invention of Dr. Harry Benjamin. Everyone started telling stories about being “women trapped in men’s bodies” because we settled for the diagnostic criteria as our role model.
Today, people make up all kinds of things to call themselves, like “non-binary,” and “gender-fluid” and so on, but for me, that whole politics is a distraction. I don’t care what my label is, I just want to live in some way that comes naturally to me—were there a monastic order for long-haired effeminate eunuchs where we all wore gorgeous Byzantine robes and lived in a pretty little abbey, I’d strongly consider taking vows.
As for my friends—I can be grateful that none of my relationships are founded in your worldview. It’s not only possible, but common in my world even for plain old men and women to be very close friends. Your assumption that because I am what I am I must be unlovable as a human being is, to me, quaint. And this is what we mean by “cultural construct.” In my country, the idea that because she has never experienced what it is to have an erection a woman should be barred from leading her church or family would be a rather fringe idea even among conservatives. I don’t personally know any woman who thinks this—certainly not my friends. In my world, friendships are based on being kind, helpful, and having fun—and it’s on these accounts that I am invited to events where men are otherwise absent.
I just want to say that while I am very much on the opposite side of this issue from you, I really appreciate your candid honesty, and your comments here have broadened my understanding and humanized the issue for me a bit.
I thank you very much for that. Seeing another's personal perspective in a non confrontational way is just very helpful when it comes to issues where there are large differences of belief - it's good to have reminder that there are real human beings behind these issues.
Thank you for reading. Times being what they are, it can be difficult to discuss these things openly. A lot of progressives are heavily invested in a certain rhetoric on this issue and would probably condemn my personal take, but then, I haven't found a lot of conservatives to be any more welcoming. I see why it's so easy for people to retreat into group-think. But, you know, we live in society with people from all sides. Explaining what you're actually about and trying to understand others is just how we exist as a society so we have to do it, even when it's not fun.
The reason I say we cannot have a productive conversation (as opposed to it just being difficult) is because we speak functionally different languages. If I spoke only German and you spoke only Mandarin and I didn’t understand Mandarin and you didn’t understand German we couldn’t have a productive conversation. Despite ostensibly speaking the same language you and I are in the same boat because we define the same words very differently and in some cases oppositely. It’s not difficult to have a productive conversation when you and I define the word “masculinity” differently, it’s impossible. We clearly have different understandings of friendship and love and most everything else. When we use the same words to mean different things we cannot have any sort of meaningful discussion.
You assume that I see the transgender community as some sort of monolith, which proves my point. I do not see transgenderism as real any more than I accept cosplay as real. There isn’t a Skyrim community, there isn’t a Star Wars community. I don’t accept being trans as an identify I certainly don’t accept the idea that there is a trans community anymore than there’s a schizophrenic community. There’s certainly a trans ideology but there’s not a trans community.
You seem to think hormones have some sort of special significance because they “change” your mental and physical processes. But that is true for a million other substances and chemicals. The vast majority of adults in the western world consumer things that alter their mental and physical states every single day. There are the things that most people don’t even consider like caffeine and sugar. There are medications for everything from thyroid disorders to depression. Alcohol certainly changes the mind and body of the user. Plenty of recreational substances also change the mind and body. Anabolic steroids, opioids, marijuana, psychadelics, all these change the way the kind and body functions but we don’t think that these substances do anything to alter the identity of the person imbibing them. Taking hormones is no different.
What you describe as feminine characteristics frankly seem more prepubescent than anything.
“I have always been long-haired, lean and smooth and simply want to stay that way—to be as the angels of a Renaissance painting”
It is not normal nor is it natural to desire to remain smooth (for many people of either sex remaining long-haired isn’t an option either). Again what I see here is a tremendous amount of self hatred, you are not an Angel of a Renaissance painting, you are something infinitely better and more beautiful, you are an image bearer of God. Trying to wage war against the reality of aging seems even more futile to me than trying to wage war against the reality of your own sex although I suppose you might win in a grim way as there’s a decent chance the hormones kill you via cancer before old age sets in.
You are right that effeminate boys aren’t treated well and certainly not as well as tomboys. I think that’s because for most of human history having a bunch of tomboys at worst meant that your civilization might run into some fertility problems but high enough numbers of effeminate boys unable to serve the roles of protector and provider could mean the destruction of your civilization. Historically speaking effeminate boys could endanger communities in a way that tomboys did not.
I think you have an idealized idea of what it might have been like to grow up if your effeminate masculinity had been more accepted. As a girl who was bullied I can tell you I was envious of boys who only got beat up when they were bullied. At least martial arts as a method of protection were an option. “Just ignore it” is the brilliant coping strategy available to girls who are “bullied” and girls use psychological torture as their preferred method of bullying. Plus kids are cruel creatures, if they don’t pick on you for one thing they will find something else to rag on you about. Getting beat up because you’re poor or a nerd or the wrong skin color isn’t any less traumatic than getting beat up for being “gay”.
We have very different ideas of what a role model should be and do and what qualifies.
I never suggested that plain old men and women can’t be friends. I agree that is true. But you aren’t a plain old man so that relationship status doesn’t apply to you. My point was that friends love you by wanting what is best for you and by warning you when you are behaving in a self destructive way even if it makes you happy. If you have a friend that is an alcoholic or an addict you don’t tell them they are fine just the way they are and go clubbing. You tell them they are ruining their lives and that they need to stop. If you’re an addict the people loaning you money for drugs aren’t your friends, they are enablers of your self destruction. I don’t think you are unlovable. I think you deserve to be better loved. To be loved by people who encourage you to love yourself instead of indulging in destructive self hatred. The words you write are those of a person at complete war against reality and it takes a tremendous amount of self hatred to wage that kind of war.
“In my world, friendships are based on being kind, helpful, and having fun—and it’s on these accounts that I am invited to events where men are otherwise absent.” So you think the hormones make you more kind, helpful or fun? If you identified as an effeminate homosexual man would you be any less these things? Do men writ large lack these characteristics which precludes their participation? Again I cannot imagine a definition of friendship that doesn’t include a willingness to self sacrifice for the benefit of the other person, what you describe as a friend I would say is an acquaintance or just plain common decency. It’s a superficial definition of and low bar for friendship.
Again I struggle very much with your understanding of masculinity which seems completely backwards to me. I didn’t say that because I couldn’t get an erection I couldn’t head a church or be head of my family. It is the fact of my womanhood that precludes me from both. As a woman I cannot get an erection. As a woman I should not head a church. It is not the lack of ability to get an erection that makes me a woman nor is it the lack of ability to get at erection that makes me unfit to lead a church. Men and women were designed by God to be different and those differences are meant to fulfill different roles that compliment one another. As a woman I am to be a helper. I am to help my husband but he is the head of the family. Men head the church, not because they get erections but because they are men and because men were designed by God to lead. I have no idea what country you live in but this is a foundational understanding of the world order in Islam, Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Christianity, Catholicism, and orthodox Christianity. So it’s statistically likely that a number of believers in your country believe this.
In my experience with language gaps, it’s always possible to communicate if you’re eager to learn. I’ve had many good conversations with people who speak bad English. Dealing with people who use words a bit differently because their values differ is much easier by comparison, especially if you make any effort to understand how the other person’s values differ from yours. A lot of ancient philosophy, Plato in particular, is just conversations about different definitions for words like “justice” and so on.
Let’s take your ideas about the church and family. Women have led churches longer than they’ve had the vote – the Quakers, for instance. Today, it is very common in Protestant Europe and the Anglosphere. The Anglican Church, for instance, has female priests and bishops. Here, the United Church of Canada, the second largest after Catholicism, celebrates female leaders and was created by a union of Methodist, Congregational Union, Presbyterian, and Local Union churches in the 1920’s. As for the Catholics – well, going back even to my grandparent’s generation, it’s rather rare for people to take their social values from the Pope, and that goes doubly for the French since the Quiet Revolution in 1960. Perhaps, for you, no one who is not an American fundamentalist is a “Christian,” but to understand such people, all you’d have to do is acknowledge that they don’t agree with you.
Likewise, if for you, the transgender community doesn’t exist, you probably recognize “all the people who believe in transgender ideology.” I don’t believe “transgender ideology,” exists, at least not as a monolithic concept, but I’m developing a good sense of what you mean by the term. It might also help to acknowledge that groups of people who share, communicate, and act towards a common interest exist, and that other people find it useful to call these groups communities, even if you would define what a community is differently. Dance around the words as much you like, maybe use some scare quotes like “community,” but you do your intelligence a disservice to claim that such terms are forever incomprehensible.
If you understand that friends are people who genuinely look out for on another, you should also be able to understand that what they think is helpful might disagree with your values. In fact, even a good friend may be prone to well-intentioned but harmful gestures – a surprise party you don’t want, for instance – but good friends can work through these problems. Probably, a friendship where a friend relentlessly tries to force their beliefs on you isn’t going to work out. If you can’t understand why a group of women would prefer an effeminate gay to a “plain old man,” instead of shunning him, that’s just another difference in values. FYI, my friends and I don’t “club” – though that is a funny stereotype. Our “self destruction” includes talking, books, sharing meals, and going hiking. Recently, they helped me move. When we are ill, we bring each other food. People who dislike transgenderism, by contrast, generally do nothing better than than abuse me for it, so they are conversely not my friends.
As for hormones – I think they are a drug. Changing mental and physical processes is what drugs do. They are a drug like the other doctor proscribed drugs I take each morning. Because I am effectively a eunuch, taking estrogen prevents me from developing osteoarthritis and dementia, just as they do post-menopausal women, who likewise take it “unnaturally.” There is no more evidence that my drugs will cause me cancer than they cause cancer to the women who take them as birth control, “unnaturally.” Your implied desire for me to get cancer is sad, by the way.
As for your comparison of the hormones in your own body to street drugs – many people actually do consider habitual drug use an aspect of identity. Addiction very much does change who a person is – what they think, feel, and do – but that sort of addiction forms through a habituation to a substance. Hormones are not addictive. Women do not become “hooked” on birth control. Forgetting to take the pills is a larger problem.
The point of being castrated, and taking hormones, is that society naturally considers you “not a plain old man.” If nothing else, people assume you’re an effeminate, which happens to be useful, if you are one. No one talks to you about hockey, or the fuckability of women, anymore. As I’ve said, many women prefer effeminate friends to “plain old men” friends, and since I like these friends, it helps to communicate that difference. Among intimate partners, too, someone who looks like me is going to be romanced very differently than a bearded, bald, hairy man – and an effeminate is going to prefer being “romanced” that way. Physicality matters. Most people would rather be in a dark alley (or bathroom) with a long-haired, effeminate waif than a 300-pound silverback gorilla of a man. I need to have this body to fit the role in society I wish to occupy. I live as I want to live and am accepted for it by the people I care about. The people who dislike my body didn’t like me even before transitioning and are hardly worth giving up my happiness for.
Your idea of what it means for an effeminate boy to be bullied is highly inaccurate. Such boys never face “just” violence. No one, smiles, and says, “You’re cool!” before punching you in the face. Violence merely reinforces much subtler forms of abuse. Every aspect of an effeminate is relentlessly insulted, and devalued. He is constantly lied about, stolen from, and humiliated – (ironically, he is very often mocked as a “girl,” UNTIL he transitions). Moreover, it isn’t just the violence – it’s feeling that you’re never ever truly safe from pain and injury as long as there are other people around, and having to watch, all the time. No, it’s not any less traumatic to be bullied for something else, but none of the other bullying is justifiable either. Your assessment of anthropology as an attempt to rationalize this bullying, is highly suspect – bullies who treat inflicting abuse as a form of recreation are the problem, not their victims.
I'm quite certain the poster wants to be respected. Moreover, I like to treat people with respect because I am not a philistine. It's a truism that respect is the basis of reciprocity, but even where it's not returned, it is an affirmation of our own values. I appreciate the time it takes for a person to express their thoughts and feelings even if I disagree with them, because I believe in the intrinsic value of people and our potential to learn from one another.
Gender (from the Latin, genus, meaning "kind," "type," or "sort") was originally a grammatical term used, for instance, in much of the Proto-Indo-European language family. If you've ever learned such a language, you will know that any correspondence to the naturalistic sex of a nominal is haphazard at best. It is precisely because of these ambiguities that the term was borrowed into the social sciences to describe the fact that male and female humans are treated differently by society. Dress codes, hair styles, behavior patterns, much less laws are not "biological."
Lake, I ordered the Dara Horn book you suggested. An excellent albeit difficult read. Thank you for the suggestion, especially these days while it feels there is so little peace on earth. Like so many books that are excellent, I am about to lose it to neighbors who are eager to read it as well! Thank you.
I'm so glad to hear you found it a good read. I don't know what I'd do in difficult times without such books to give me perspective. I fear I will have a need for much more reading in the near future, but its a comfort to know I could be of assistance.
My heart goes out to sufferers of ignorance and bigotry. Just remember, there are doctors out there waiting to help you with your case of anti-social personality disorder.
What I call ignorant is your presumption to know my truth better than me based on an illiterate, juvenile misreading that erroneously accuses me of a discredited diagnosis of sexual perversion. That you would choose to do so in a public discussion dedicated to a defense of the unmediated subjectivity of beauty only furthers your embarrassment.
And you believe the triumph of truth over lies is to be exemplified by spuriously accusing a stranger of a sexual perversion like a high-school bully?
My truth is the truth about me which I know by having lived my life. Nor is it a lie to have a personal sense of taste. Love of androgynous beauty is a fact of many people and societies down through history, and I happen to be among those people. The way that I sit, stand, walk, talk, stand and gesture are facts. My right to pick my own clothes and style my own hair are facts. The orchidectomy has been a fact of life since antiquity, if not the paleolithic. What here falls into the category of a lie? If my liberty contradicts the expectations you place on others, that's a fault of your disciplinary ontologies, not my documentation of reality.
So true Ted. Beauty and soul are words that one does hear often enough. The world needs more of both. The anima mundi is crying out for what you are emphasizing.
1. Is it not written that the difference between High Art and lowbrow art is that mass audiences will not tolerate being bored, while connoisseurs of High Art are willing to be bored for the right cause?
2. I have long thought that, while sales of recorded music have collapsed in dollar terms, there are more possibilities out there than ever before to get one's music out. The traditional gatekeepers, recording studios, record labels and radio play are less and less relevant, now that any jerk with a laptop and wifi can get into the recording business by nightfall.
Just that the hookers-and-blow lifestyle is less and less of a possibility for most musicians.
3. I had never heard of him, but this Hickey individual sounds interesting.
Seeing shows like Real Housewives, seeing art like Kincaid I can only conclude that masses are happy to be bored as long as the subject matter is familiar. Like elites. But there are people who are not constrained by what art should or shouldn’t look like. I’m still learning
Interesting point. I didn't know that "Real Housewives" was still a thing, but keeping in mind that reality shows are much cheaper to put on than traditional teevee, everything makes sense.
THANK YOU!!!!! I've been a fan of Hickey's writing ever since my first tour of grad school. I'm ready to hear about beauty as a subversive concept again. ✌️✌️🙌🙌
This essay made me immediately think of what Pirsig wrote about quality in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. How it comes before all things. And what happens to institutions that try to box it in (but can’t).
I am grateful for Substack — making it possible for me to send out daily thoughts to those who are interested in muse-beauty.
I am grateful for Amazon — making it possible for me to self publish beautiful books that are printed and shipped on demand.
I am grateful for all the builders who have created tools making it possible for me to share my art without keys to a gate or alms for a gatekeeper.
I am grateful for those who make my quiet, little, beautiful rebellions possible.
😁
Beauty is the only thing that can save the world.
We can no longer allow ourselves the luxury of thinking that we can logic our way to utopia.
Perhaps you're correct; in a perfect world I wouldn't question that. But the old axiom that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is just as accurate as Murphy's Law. As an architect I find renaissance architecture to be (mostly) beautiful, but many of my peers are under the misconception that Gehry's designs are beautiful. They're not. So that's a bit of a conundrum.
Many years ago, I spent a day on assignment with Hickey. He lived in a Las Vegas hi-rise; hung out at a seedy strip diner, and carted me around for a visit to local artists. He was the antithesis of an "art critic." I read all of his books and, hopefully, understood some of them. His essay on why art costs so damn much was brilliant and unexpected.
He's gone now--but the shot he called back in the '90s is all around us: the visual arts are now agitprop--the uglier the better. Here in Portland, the art museum is putting on a show limited to only black (capital B) artists...neo-segregation at its most poignant. Is any of it "beautiful?" Who cares: it's the politics, stupid.
Agitprop, exactly. Politics. And dead.
Otherwise, in comment to the whole article, I wonder if the subjectivity of beauty, as in beauty is in the eye of the beholder, doesn't miss the true point about Beauty, which is that it inheres in the structure of reality, as harmony does, and certain vibrational facts do, and there is a more universal quality to it than a particularizing one. I agree that Beauty can't be legislated by institutions or from the top down, but I wonder if it isn't legislated by reality which is why there can be a census across time & space & radically different cultures as to the Beauty of certain forms & compositions & combinations of sounds. To love something or someone & to have passion, intimacy, or tenderness for it doesn't necessarily make it beautiful, but cherished and appreciated & loved for something intrinsic to it but we all have surely experienced passion or compelling interest in things & people that we know aren't beautiful but our love is true anyway precisely because our feeling involves qualities other than beauty. And we shouldn't forget how well internalized cultural norms are & tendencies to conformity, so much so that the "anarchists on Tumblr" aren't freely choosing & expressing the Beautiful but might well be extolling merely what their cohort or the corporate society have told them is desirable and subversive. I'm not too sure that Beauty--expressed & appreciated-is the free for all described. What if the subversive thing is precisely that beauty inheres in the structure of reality meaning that there is indeed an objective world out there for us to attend to and come to know & everything isn't in fact a product of our own consciousness. Anyway, it's a fascinating topic & a very uneasy one to take up today.
Yes, I agree with what you’re saying because to see the beauty is simply in the eye of the beholder just sort of takes away the idea of inherent beauty like you talked about.
yes! you have said it well.
As opposed to the other 1000 shows that only showed white artists. Amazing how many of these comments dont understand hickey’s concept of beauty at all. The fact that you dont think this art is beautiful just means its not for you.
Interesting theory, Ted. I agree with most of what you said. I do think there is also more junk around than ever before in all of the arts, as well as more exciting and cutting edge stuff happening everywhere. But the loss of arts education in the schools and the diminishment of enrollment in college music programs is a disaster. Technique, history, theory, ensemble work (in the case of music) still have to be taught from generation to generation. I just prepped the chorus for Mozart's glorious masterpiece the "Great Mass in C Minor," and the audience was about 95% people over 70. Given the vitality of the music and the LIVE communal experience provided, that was extremely disheartening. And in my faculty job I talk to students every day who have NEVER had any kind of arts education (WGU, an online non-profit school) because rural or diverse schools get arts education (and social studies and government) cut before anything else. It's a tragedy.
You are so right and it’s very discouraging. However, there is hope. I play in a couple of music ensembles, consisting mainly of older people who had not played their instrument in years, but missed playing, but also young people who have joined us.
Our town's schools instituted a few decades ago a music requirement that runs from third through tenth grade. It's arranged into a series of choices (instrument, chorus, band, exploratory) that students can change from one year to the next, if they wish -- or they can choose one and stick with it. The eleventh and twelfth grade music activity by the almost-adults is quite healthy, because the menu was laid out and its importance stressed earlier in their school years.
So good. Best I’ve read in ages and something I’ve had on my mind for a while now. I get the sense people have been sort of frozen in their relationship to the arts and creativity in general for a little while, as if singing and painting and poetry are the exclusive ‘gifts’ of the so called ‘stars’, not permitted for anyone ‘commoner’ to experiment with without the permission of the media establishment!
No! We’ve got to take back our birthright which is to express ourselves and paint and sing and make a noise and see what happens. Enough of this self consciousness. We’re taking back beauty!
Well said.
Beauty is the subversive counter-culture compared to our demoralized culture. Arthur Kwon Lee and the Genesis Council are bringing beauty and universal truths back into art: https://www.arthurkwonlee.com/
Lovely.
As Frank Zappa put it in Packard Goose on Joe’s Garage,
"Information is not knowledge
Knowledge is not wisdom
Wisdom is not truth
Truth is not beauty
Beauty is not love
Love is not music
Music is THE BEST"
Beauty has more than one definition. It usually refers to a societal, or at least collective, standard, and that standard reflects the societal power structure as to what is pleasing to the eye. This type of beauty has always been a form of currency. It also refers to an individual standard which is completely personal and subjective, though it may have been influenced in one way or another by the prevailing societal standard. This type of beauty has always existed and, as the old saying goes, can not be disputed.
I don't think it is beauty that is dangerous. I think the increasing disconnect between our society's standards and our personal standards is more the problem, but this has been a problem in every era. We can look back at the creativity of the 1960s, but, at the time, that was considered artistically an era of vacuous corporate culture and dull conformism. There was a counterculture, and it had its impact. Now it is institutionalized and can be considered part of the problem.
This gets us something of a contradiction. Do we have a counterculture or not? Is Mr. Beast a harbinger of great new art or a sideshow? How much organization is appropriate for a proper counterculture? What do we do when Bandcamp becomes a multi-billion dollar company with its own style, its own impresarios and serious societal power? Are all those artists still indie artists or have they sold out?
These aren't new questions. Mad Magazine addressed them ages ago:
http://kaleberg.com/public/Non%20Conformists.pdf
I agree with our host that something new is being born, and that it threatens our society's conventional structures of beauty. To be honest, I suspect that the dynamic is working on two fronts. There is the roots up creation of new means of consumption, and there is top down pressure in the form of increasing government anti-trust action. I know that latter seems divorced from aesthetic matters, but I think it matters more than many suspect.
That Mad Magazine elucidation is mint. Thanks for sharing it.
Back when I was twelve, Paul Goodman called Mad Magazine the bible of twelve year olds who could read. Some of it holds up all too well.
I discovered Mad when I was about 9 or 10 and started reading it like crazy. It started with a friend's older sister, then went to him, then to me. I didn't fully understand it until perhaps age 14 or 15 and, even then, not till well into adulthood. Unfortunately, there's nothing like that now, unless you count the underhandedly subversive and sharp video games that my son likes to play.
Band Camp has just been sold and no one knows what's going to happen the artists who are on it.
It will become more "content."
Unlike my breakfast cereal, that has become less content, and I, in turn have become less content.
😆
“The three qualities I admire in the poetry I like best are: Accuracy, Spontaneity, Mystery.”
This sentence is a well-known quote by Elizabeth Bishop. For me, these three qualities, when they occur all at once in the same work of art, are the definition of beauty. I love the contradictions! How can something that’s spontaneous also be accurate? How can something that’s accurate also be mysterious?
Thank you for this post about Dave Hickey and beauty--two of my favorite subjects!
Truth. Great art does not need to be explained.
We'll return to Glenstone tomorrow for the latest offerings from the proprietors. They do not post words on walls to tell us what we see. They let the artwork do its own emoting. Pretty refreshing. And it is surrounded by meadow and woodland and stream – that is, the REAL beauty.
I've searched many decades for beauty and I know it when I see it, hear it or smell it and most of it is outdoors, not in, and most of that is away from roads, buildings and machine sounds. It's always worth the effort.
Wow. Glenstone brings game.
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" in a sense, yes. But not in the sense that that phrase is usually taken to mean. There are in fact rational patterns we can discover that correlate strongly with human perception of beauty. So "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" cannot be taken to mean that aesthetics are some kind of purely arbitrary, individualist affair. To the contrary, beauty is "programmed into" the "eye" (and therefore, the brain) of the beholder in certain nonarbitrary ways. See, for example, the famous mathematical physicist-turned-architectural critic Nikos Salingaros's work, such as "box counting" algorithms, for more details.
For me, gender transition had nothing to do with becoming a woman. Of course, you have to say that for the doctors and folks, but what it was really about was wanting to be part of what I found beautiful. And it was worth it.
The unfortunate truth though is that particular beauty is not yours to take part in. You can never truly participate in or experience it. The “beauty” you are experiencing is the beauty of a forgery, maybe it’s high end enough to fool some people who don’t pay too much attention or who don’t care, but there’s nothing authentic about it. I’m sure the people who used to produce and partake in minstrel shows thought that was beautiful too. It wasn’t and what you are doing is modern socially acceptable black face against women. The beauty of African culture is not mine claim, I can appreciate it from afar but I cannot claim it. The same is true of feminine beauty, you cannot claim it to attempt to do so is a forgery.
Alright. This is a discourse, which is something I can at least respect, even if I don't agree. Is it fair to say you believe transgenderism constitutes a sort of violation of intellectual property, or cultural appropriation? I would be delighted to know what it is, exactly, you believe belongs to men that you as a woman should never be allowed to have.
Some might refuse to see me as a man, but if we may agree that I am, I really see nothing to defend myself against if a woman doesn't want to look or act "like a woman." Gender is not a culture. It is not property. Gender is an emergent set of norms within a culture that arises in relation to biological sex. Enforcing those norms is nonsense since every norm is an average of deviations.
Besides, as I stated, "For me, gender transition had nothing to do with becoming a woman." My beauty is not a woman's beauty. You would be the one appropriating if you claimed it for yourself. The truth is, I'm the same as I ever have been - effeminate. The way I walk, talk, sit, stand, and gesture have never been acceptably "manly," despite my best efforts to the contrary, growing up. These are intrinsic parts of my personality that belong to me, not you. When a man or woman undergoes a castration, or a hysterectomy, that's a personal medical choice over one's own body. No ethical imperative binds me to becoming bearded, bald, or hairy when I have always been happier otherwise. Nor does my romantic attraction to men have anything to do with you.
Moreover, in my own community, it's generally women seeking to include me more in their spaces and activities. I recognize their authority to see me as "one of them," even if I'm different. That authority holds for me over that of a stranger.
I’m not entirely sure we can have a productive conversation because I do not grant any of the presuppositions your worldview is based on. Transgenderism is a violation of basic reality and biology, it’s a lie. Basic reality and biology endows certain things on men that it doesn’t endow upon me and the reverse is true. I will never know what it is to be a boy or man because a boy or man is defined by his XY genetics and I do not have a Y chromosome. No matter how many chemicals I pump into my body or how many surgeries I get I won’t know what it is to have a real erection, I won’t know what it is to have to bone structure and density and composition of a man or the lung capacity or a thousand other tiny day to day realities. Trying to eliminate cultural distinctions between men and women doesn’t eliminate the biological reality that we are different.
That said there are plenty of cultural institutions that I have no part in. Men’s bathrooms and prisons come to the top of the list. Any sort of men’s only social group or space. The pulpit or a leadership position in the church. Head of my household. Sure I can demand or force my way into such spaces but I do not belong there even if I pump myself full of testosterone. You have no business being in a women’s bathroom, a women’s prison, or a women’s support group. You would have no business being in a battered women’s shelter. You are not a woman, you’re a cross dressing man.
Your entire worldview seems to be based on the premise that a small number of social scientists from the latter part of the twentieth century had the authority and ability to define gender as different than sex. I do not grant that authority at all. At best the social sciences can describe social situations, they have no business trying to redefine reality. When Caligula castrated an unfortunate young man and dressed him up as the wife he murdered everyone knew the truth. That young man was a eunuch and not a woman. Gender is simply the public outward expression of biological sex and any claim that the two can be uncoupled or different is simply nonsense.
You are not and can never be any sort of woman. You are an effeminate man. Why you would claim to be trans instead of saying you are a cross dressing effeminate gay man is beyond me. I suspect I have a greater respect for your masculine authentic beauty than you do given you appear to have a rather shallow understanding of masculinity and the fact that you have shed that beauty in favor of a feminine beauty that can only ever be fraudulent. It’s interesting to me that you seem to consider being bald, bearded, and hairy as some sort of definition of masculinity. Some of the most stereotypically masculine men are none of those things and I know a good many old women who are all three, or who would be if they didn’t shave or pluck their facial hair. The idea that your masculinity could be defined by your facial hair or the way you walk is strange.
As far as the women who include you, I have some bad news for you. Something that would be incredibly obvious if you were actually a woman. Those women are not your friends. Friends tell you hard truths. Friends would encourage you to express your true masculinity rather than trying to live as a forged version of femininity. You are an accessory to those women. It’s trendy to have a trans woman in your circle right now. Just like in the early 2000s Will and Grace and Sex in the City made having male gay friends a trendy thing to do. The minute that trend goes away or the minute that including you comes at some sort of personal cost they are going to abandon you. You cannot have an authentic relationship built on lies or supporting lies.
It’s not surprising to me that you want to listen to people that are telling you what you want to hear rather than the people who tell you hard truths you don’t want to hear.
Femininity is not a cultural construct that you can appropriate, it is not dresses and makeup and long hair. Femininity is a biological reality and for you to try and claim it for yourself is a destructive lie. You are not a trans woman. You are not any type of woman. You are a cross dressing effeminate gay man. You are playing a high stakes game of dress up and make believe. That’s tragic. You’re pursuing a black face version of womanhood rather than embracing your own beautiful masculinity, a forgery rather than an original, and you think it’s something to celebrate instead of a sign of pitiful self hatred. I feel incredibly sorry for you wasting your life pursuing something you can never have instead of celebrating what you do have.
It’s true this may be a difficult discussion, but less because there are basic fundamental disagreements in our worldview than because of considerable misunderstandings that exist between us. It is precisely for that reason I consider discussion valuable. I do not aim to persuade you against your worldview—I just want to understand precisely what it is, and to clarify what I myself actually believe so that I may be understood. I hope this information will be useful to us both as we navigate these issues in the future.
Your greatest misapprehension is that the transgender community has a unified, monolithic belief structure. The truth is far messier. I see no need to say things like “I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body,” or “transwomen are women.” This is, for me, political rhetoric. I politely nod when people say these things mostly so I can get along with them.
I will sidestep genetics for now—chromosomes are a comparatively recent discover, and while others will split hairs over intersexuality, for me sex would be something obvious even without chromosomes. Sex is an anatomical fact of birth and development that facilitates reproduction. We understand the structure and purpose of a heart even if we replace it with some medical contrivance.
On the other hand, whether or not hormones turn a woman into a man—let’s say “no”—you must surely recognize their biological and psychological affect. What estrogen and testosterone do to mammals is well understood. I remember a transman describing his first experiences with testosterone—“All I wanted was to punch someone, eat a steak, and fuck!”—which brought me instantly back to my own, dreadful experience of puberty. More than any benefit of estrogen, to receive an androgen blocker at 18 was an incalculable relief—freedom from a bitter aggression I could only responsibly turn inward, and the distraction of a perpetual, profoundly uncomfortable, gay libido. It was a return to the comfort in my own skin I had felt prior to puberty.
Hormones don’t make me a woman, but they certainly make me different, biologically, from a cross-dressing effeminate gay man who is not on hormones, and I value that difference. I leave it to anthropologists and the like to label. I assert only that I exist. I can see palpably, in my brother, that had I let testosterone run it’s course, I’d have been bearded, bald, and hairy—and if you’d enjoy being those things, you can have them—but people treat you differently when you’re long haired, lean, and smooth, whether you’re a man or a woman, and that difference is something I welcome. I have always been long-haired, lean and smooth and simply want to stay that way—to be as the angels of a Renaissance painting.
In any case, you have misunderstood my childhood lament at being “insufficiently manly.” The issue was never lack of acceptance that I was myself a boy—it was discipline. Effeminate boys are not treated well. It was always made known to me growing up that everything about me was wrong. “Why do you walk like that?” “Why do you cross your legs when you sit?” “Why do you talk like a girl?” Everything that came naturally was met with hostility. I was called “gay” years before I knew what “gay” meant—only that I didn’t want to be treated that way. Yet on the rare occasions I was mistaken for a girl in boyish clothing—well, certainly the adults were much friendlier. But besides, I liked pretty things, and wanted to be pretty. I never wanted to “be” a girl, but it was obvious if I’d been born such, I wouldn’t be getting beat up for the reasons I was—and then enrolled in a couple martial arts to toughen me up against it.
Perhaps, if in the way we so often indulge tomboys, I’d simply been called “cute”, patted on my little head of long blonde hair, and left to run around in something long and flowy, I’d never have been induced to transition. Every child needs a role-model they can see themselves in—and when I saw my first transwoman on TV, I pretty quickly deduced this was my best chance at happiness. I could be “effeminate,” and only be punished for it if I was found out. But as you say, “transsexualism” was itself a “culture construct”—the invention of Dr. Harry Benjamin. Everyone started telling stories about being “women trapped in men’s bodies” because we settled for the diagnostic criteria as our role model.
Today, people make up all kinds of things to call themselves, like “non-binary,” and “gender-fluid” and so on, but for me, that whole politics is a distraction. I don’t care what my label is, I just want to live in some way that comes naturally to me—were there a monastic order for long-haired effeminate eunuchs where we all wore gorgeous Byzantine robes and lived in a pretty little abbey, I’d strongly consider taking vows.
As for my friends—I can be grateful that none of my relationships are founded in your worldview. It’s not only possible, but common in my world even for plain old men and women to be very close friends. Your assumption that because I am what I am I must be unlovable as a human being is, to me, quaint. And this is what we mean by “cultural construct.” In my country, the idea that because she has never experienced what it is to have an erection a woman should be barred from leading her church or family would be a rather fringe idea even among conservatives. I don’t personally know any woman who thinks this—certainly not my friends. In my world, friendships are based on being kind, helpful, and having fun—and it’s on these accounts that I am invited to events where men are otherwise absent.
I just want to say that while I am very much on the opposite side of this issue from you, I really appreciate your candid honesty, and your comments here have broadened my understanding and humanized the issue for me a bit.
I thank you very much for that. Seeing another's personal perspective in a non confrontational way is just very helpful when it comes to issues where there are large differences of belief - it's good to have reminder that there are real human beings behind these issues.
Thank you for reading. Times being what they are, it can be difficult to discuss these things openly. A lot of progressives are heavily invested in a certain rhetoric on this issue and would probably condemn my personal take, but then, I haven't found a lot of conservatives to be any more welcoming. I see why it's so easy for people to retreat into group-think. But, you know, we live in society with people from all sides. Explaining what you're actually about and trying to understand others is just how we exist as a society so we have to do it, even when it's not fun.
Thank you again for reading, and all the best.
Response
The reason I say we cannot have a productive conversation (as opposed to it just being difficult) is because we speak functionally different languages. If I spoke only German and you spoke only Mandarin and I didn’t understand Mandarin and you didn’t understand German we couldn’t have a productive conversation. Despite ostensibly speaking the same language you and I are in the same boat because we define the same words very differently and in some cases oppositely. It’s not difficult to have a productive conversation when you and I define the word “masculinity” differently, it’s impossible. We clearly have different understandings of friendship and love and most everything else. When we use the same words to mean different things we cannot have any sort of meaningful discussion.
You assume that I see the transgender community as some sort of monolith, which proves my point. I do not see transgenderism as real any more than I accept cosplay as real. There isn’t a Skyrim community, there isn’t a Star Wars community. I don’t accept being trans as an identify I certainly don’t accept the idea that there is a trans community anymore than there’s a schizophrenic community. There’s certainly a trans ideology but there’s not a trans community.
You seem to think hormones have some sort of special significance because they “change” your mental and physical processes. But that is true for a million other substances and chemicals. The vast majority of adults in the western world consumer things that alter their mental and physical states every single day. There are the things that most people don’t even consider like caffeine and sugar. There are medications for everything from thyroid disorders to depression. Alcohol certainly changes the mind and body of the user. Plenty of recreational substances also change the mind and body. Anabolic steroids, opioids, marijuana, psychadelics, all these change the way the kind and body functions but we don’t think that these substances do anything to alter the identity of the person imbibing them. Taking hormones is no different.
What you describe as feminine characteristics frankly seem more prepubescent than anything.
“I have always been long-haired, lean and smooth and simply want to stay that way—to be as the angels of a Renaissance painting”
It is not normal nor is it natural to desire to remain smooth (for many people of either sex remaining long-haired isn’t an option either). Again what I see here is a tremendous amount of self hatred, you are not an Angel of a Renaissance painting, you are something infinitely better and more beautiful, you are an image bearer of God. Trying to wage war against the reality of aging seems even more futile to me than trying to wage war against the reality of your own sex although I suppose you might win in a grim way as there’s a decent chance the hormones kill you via cancer before old age sets in.
You are right that effeminate boys aren’t treated well and certainly not as well as tomboys. I think that’s because for most of human history having a bunch of tomboys at worst meant that your civilization might run into some fertility problems but high enough numbers of effeminate boys unable to serve the roles of protector and provider could mean the destruction of your civilization. Historically speaking effeminate boys could endanger communities in a way that tomboys did not.
I think you have an idealized idea of what it might have been like to grow up if your effeminate masculinity had been more accepted. As a girl who was bullied I can tell you I was envious of boys who only got beat up when they were bullied. At least martial arts as a method of protection were an option. “Just ignore it” is the brilliant coping strategy available to girls who are “bullied” and girls use psychological torture as their preferred method of bullying. Plus kids are cruel creatures, if they don’t pick on you for one thing they will find something else to rag on you about. Getting beat up because you’re poor or a nerd or the wrong skin color isn’t any less traumatic than getting beat up for being “gay”.
We have very different ideas of what a role model should be and do and what qualifies.
I never suggested that plain old men and women can’t be friends. I agree that is true. But you aren’t a plain old man so that relationship status doesn’t apply to you. My point was that friends love you by wanting what is best for you and by warning you when you are behaving in a self destructive way even if it makes you happy. If you have a friend that is an alcoholic or an addict you don’t tell them they are fine just the way they are and go clubbing. You tell them they are ruining their lives and that they need to stop. If you’re an addict the people loaning you money for drugs aren’t your friends, they are enablers of your self destruction. I don’t think you are unlovable. I think you deserve to be better loved. To be loved by people who encourage you to love yourself instead of indulging in destructive self hatred. The words you write are those of a person at complete war against reality and it takes a tremendous amount of self hatred to wage that kind of war.
“In my world, friendships are based on being kind, helpful, and having fun—and it’s on these accounts that I am invited to events where men are otherwise absent.” So you think the hormones make you more kind, helpful or fun? If you identified as an effeminate homosexual man would you be any less these things? Do men writ large lack these characteristics which precludes their participation? Again I cannot imagine a definition of friendship that doesn’t include a willingness to self sacrifice for the benefit of the other person, what you describe as a friend I would say is an acquaintance or just plain common decency. It’s a superficial definition of and low bar for friendship.
Again I struggle very much with your understanding of masculinity which seems completely backwards to me. I didn’t say that because I couldn’t get an erection I couldn’t head a church or be head of my family. It is the fact of my womanhood that precludes me from both. As a woman I cannot get an erection. As a woman I should not head a church. It is not the lack of ability to get an erection that makes me a woman nor is it the lack of ability to get at erection that makes me unfit to lead a church. Men and women were designed by God to be different and those differences are meant to fulfill different roles that compliment one another. As a woman I am to be a helper. I am to help my husband but he is the head of the family. Men head the church, not because they get erections but because they are men and because men were designed by God to lead. I have no idea what country you live in but this is a foundational understanding of the world order in Islam, Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Christianity, Catholicism, and orthodox Christianity. So it’s statistically likely that a number of believers in your country believe this.
In my experience with language gaps, it’s always possible to communicate if you’re eager to learn. I’ve had many good conversations with people who speak bad English. Dealing with people who use words a bit differently because their values differ is much easier by comparison, especially if you make any effort to understand how the other person’s values differ from yours. A lot of ancient philosophy, Plato in particular, is just conversations about different definitions for words like “justice” and so on.
Let’s take your ideas about the church and family. Women have led churches longer than they’ve had the vote – the Quakers, for instance. Today, it is very common in Protestant Europe and the Anglosphere. The Anglican Church, for instance, has female priests and bishops. Here, the United Church of Canada, the second largest after Catholicism, celebrates female leaders and was created by a union of Methodist, Congregational Union, Presbyterian, and Local Union churches in the 1920’s. As for the Catholics – well, going back even to my grandparent’s generation, it’s rather rare for people to take their social values from the Pope, and that goes doubly for the French since the Quiet Revolution in 1960. Perhaps, for you, no one who is not an American fundamentalist is a “Christian,” but to understand such people, all you’d have to do is acknowledge that they don’t agree with you.
Likewise, if for you, the transgender community doesn’t exist, you probably recognize “all the people who believe in transgender ideology.” I don’t believe “transgender ideology,” exists, at least not as a monolithic concept, but I’m developing a good sense of what you mean by the term. It might also help to acknowledge that groups of people who share, communicate, and act towards a common interest exist, and that other people find it useful to call these groups communities, even if you would define what a community is differently. Dance around the words as much you like, maybe use some scare quotes like “community,” but you do your intelligence a disservice to claim that such terms are forever incomprehensible.
If you understand that friends are people who genuinely look out for on another, you should also be able to understand that what they think is helpful might disagree with your values. In fact, even a good friend may be prone to well-intentioned but harmful gestures – a surprise party you don’t want, for instance – but good friends can work through these problems. Probably, a friendship where a friend relentlessly tries to force their beliefs on you isn’t going to work out. If you can’t understand why a group of women would prefer an effeminate gay to a “plain old man,” instead of shunning him, that’s just another difference in values. FYI, my friends and I don’t “club” – though that is a funny stereotype. Our “self destruction” includes talking, books, sharing meals, and going hiking. Recently, they helped me move. When we are ill, we bring each other food. People who dislike transgenderism, by contrast, generally do nothing better than than abuse me for it, so they are conversely not my friends.
As for hormones – I think they are a drug. Changing mental and physical processes is what drugs do. They are a drug like the other doctor proscribed drugs I take each morning. Because I am effectively a eunuch, taking estrogen prevents me from developing osteoarthritis and dementia, just as they do post-menopausal women, who likewise take it “unnaturally.” There is no more evidence that my drugs will cause me cancer than they cause cancer to the women who take them as birth control, “unnaturally.” Your implied desire for me to get cancer is sad, by the way.
As for your comparison of the hormones in your own body to street drugs – many people actually do consider habitual drug use an aspect of identity. Addiction very much does change who a person is – what they think, feel, and do – but that sort of addiction forms through a habituation to a substance. Hormones are not addictive. Women do not become “hooked” on birth control. Forgetting to take the pills is a larger problem.
The point of being castrated, and taking hormones, is that society naturally considers you “not a plain old man.” If nothing else, people assume you’re an effeminate, which happens to be useful, if you are one. No one talks to you about hockey, or the fuckability of women, anymore. As I’ve said, many women prefer effeminate friends to “plain old men” friends, and since I like these friends, it helps to communicate that difference. Among intimate partners, too, someone who looks like me is going to be romanced very differently than a bearded, bald, hairy man – and an effeminate is going to prefer being “romanced” that way. Physicality matters. Most people would rather be in a dark alley (or bathroom) with a long-haired, effeminate waif than a 300-pound silverback gorilla of a man. I need to have this body to fit the role in society I wish to occupy. I live as I want to live and am accepted for it by the people I care about. The people who dislike my body didn’t like me even before transitioning and are hardly worth giving up my happiness for.
Your idea of what it means for an effeminate boy to be bullied is highly inaccurate. Such boys never face “just” violence. No one, smiles, and says, “You’re cool!” before punching you in the face. Violence merely reinforces much subtler forms of abuse. Every aspect of an effeminate is relentlessly insulted, and devalued. He is constantly lied about, stolen from, and humiliated – (ironically, he is very often mocked as a “girl,” UNTIL he transitions). Moreover, it isn’t just the violence – it’s feeling that you’re never ever truly safe from pain and injury as long as there are other people around, and having to watch, all the time. No, it’s not any less traumatic to be bullied for something else, but none of the other bullying is justifiable either. Your assessment of anthropology as an attempt to rationalize this bullying, is highly suspect – bullies who treat inflicting abuse as a form of recreation are the problem, not their victims.
I'm quite certain the poster wants to be respected. Moreover, I like to treat people with respect because I am not a philistine. It's a truism that respect is the basis of reciprocity, but even where it's not returned, it is an affirmation of our own values. I appreciate the time it takes for a person to express their thoughts and feelings even if I disagree with them, because I believe in the intrinsic value of people and our potential to learn from one another.
Gender (from the Latin, genus, meaning "kind," "type," or "sort") was originally a grammatical term used, for instance, in much of the Proto-Indo-European language family. If you've ever learned such a language, you will know that any correspondence to the naturalistic sex of a nominal is haphazard at best. It is precisely because of these ambiguities that the term was borrowed into the social sciences to describe the fact that male and female humans are treated differently by society. Dress codes, hair styles, behavior patterns, much less laws are not "biological."
I find Beauty in Both genders when the person of the particular gender is true to the Beauty they are seeing.
Lake, I ordered the Dara Horn book you suggested. An excellent albeit difficult read. Thank you for the suggestion, especially these days while it feels there is so little peace on earth. Like so many books that are excellent, I am about to lose it to neighbors who are eager to read it as well! Thank you.
I'm so glad to hear you found it a good read. I don't know what I'd do in difficult times without such books to give me perspective. I fear I will have a need for much more reading in the near future, but its a comfort to know I could be of assistance.
Lake, you’re fine. Do not allow people into your head. Thank you for the book and I will think and do the same for you. Much love.
Thank you for the caring words. If you have any books you can recommend to me, I would be delighted to hear about them.
Was that necessary?
Agree. Not necessary and in fact not beautiful. And seemingly not comprehending what Lake was trying to share.
Art is a lie though...
I beg to differ.
My heart goes out to sufferers of ignorance and bigotry. Just remember, there are doctors out there waiting to help you with your case of anti-social personality disorder.
What I call ignorant is your presumption to know my truth better than me based on an illiterate, juvenile misreading that erroneously accuses me of a discredited diagnosis of sexual perversion. That you would choose to do so in a public discussion dedicated to a defense of the unmediated subjectivity of beauty only furthers your embarrassment.
And you believe the triumph of truth over lies is to be exemplified by spuriously accusing a stranger of a sexual perversion like a high-school bully?
My truth is the truth about me which I know by having lived my life. Nor is it a lie to have a personal sense of taste. Love of androgynous beauty is a fact of many people and societies down through history, and I happen to be among those people. The way that I sit, stand, walk, talk, stand and gesture are facts. My right to pick my own clothes and style my own hair are facts. The orchidectomy has been a fact of life since antiquity, if not the paleolithic. What here falls into the category of a lie? If my liberty contradicts the expectations you place on others, that's a fault of your disciplinary ontologies, not my documentation of reality.
So true Ted. Beauty and soul are words that one does hear often enough. The world needs more of both. The anima mundi is crying out for what you are emphasizing.
1. Is it not written that the difference between High Art and lowbrow art is that mass audiences will not tolerate being bored, while connoisseurs of High Art are willing to be bored for the right cause?
2. I have long thought that, while sales of recorded music have collapsed in dollar terms, there are more possibilities out there than ever before to get one's music out. The traditional gatekeepers, recording studios, record labels and radio play are less and less relevant, now that any jerk with a laptop and wifi can get into the recording business by nightfall.
Just that the hookers-and-blow lifestyle is less and less of a possibility for most musicians.
3. I had never heard of him, but this Hickey individual sounds interesting.
Seeing shows like Real Housewives, seeing art like Kincaid I can only conclude that masses are happy to be bored as long as the subject matter is familiar. Like elites. But there are people who are not constrained by what art should or shouldn’t look like. I’m still learning
Interesting point. I didn't know that "Real Housewives" was still a thing, but keeping in mind that reality shows are much cheaper to put on than traditional teevee, everything makes sense.
Bling rap?
Agreed. Places like wavlake.com provide a future.
THANK YOU!!!!! I've been a fan of Hickey's writing ever since my first tour of grad school. I'm ready to hear about beauty as a subversive concept again. ✌️✌️🙌🙌
This essay made me immediately think of what Pirsig wrote about quality in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. How it comes before all things. And what happens to institutions that try to box it in (but can’t).