We're Born Naked ... Notes on Simon Doonan's Complete Story of Drag (Part 2: On Butch Drag, Black Drag, Historical Drag, and Comedy Drag)

Simon Doonan: Drag: The Complete Story (2019) [a] 

Photo by Greg Endries and posted on simondoonan.com 

 

 

I. 

 

I don't have much to say about women who like to cross-dress as men (drag kings). 

 

It's not that butch drag doesn't deserve analysis, it's just that the topic doesn't particularly excite my interest and Doonan irritates me in this chapter with his lazy politics of empowerment (which I critiqued in part one of this post): 

 

"Butching it up, aping the style of men and making it their own, has put many women in the driver's seat and improved their lives." (70) [b]

 

It seems that hyper-femininity only empowers when you're a man and that women who are happy wearing pastel twinsets with matching skirts are regressive and reinforcing the gender binary. For Doonan, a woman in trousers who has released her inner butch feels powerful, looks stylish, and can earn big bucks. 

 

And, best of all, she has "banished the ditsy ruffled femininity" (75) that he finds so objectionable.   

 

Doonan's closing section to chapter 3 - 'Fey is the new butch' - argues that for many young people in this non-binary age of gender fluidity, "dressing with heavy-handed masculinity" and "aping the patriarchy (82) does not appeal. 

 

They want a new (non-toxic) look connected to their trans identity; more nuanced - which, I suppose, is fair enough, although, in my view, identity remains the problem (can't you see) and self-expression remains far less exciting (for me as a Deleuzian) than becoming-imperceptible.          

 

 

II. 

 

I also don't have much to say about black drag queens; although again, it's more because I feel this is outside my area of experience, knowledge and real interest [c], not because I believe it's undeserving of critical commentary, or is marginal to the world of drag. 

 

Doonan, however, seems knowledgeable of and fascinated by the black drag queen as "an enduring icon" (85) and source of inspiration. One almost worries, in fact, that his admiration tips over into racial fetishism at times: 

 

"She generously and magnanimously enriches the culture [...] and we must all bow down before her.

      The Medusan ferocity that characterizes glamour drag queens is amplified in the black drag queen, and augmented with unique black irony and wit. The black drag queen is both comedic and glamorous. The black drag queen is fierce." (85) 

 

I can, I suppose, see the appeal - but this goes a bit too far, I think. 

 

Doonan is, one suspects, over-egging the pudding in the attempt to firstly compensate for his white privilege and, secondly, assuage his white guilt. Talented black artists and performers have obviously made a vital contribution to contemporary popular culture (as have Jewish artists and performers), but whether we all need to fall down on our knees and kiss their arses in eternal "#gratitude" (85) is debatable.    

 

Also, I'm less than convinced that "creativity and originality is a function of marginal status" (86) and that individuals "with marginal status have always contributed disproportionately to the culture" (86). Perhaps. But I'd be a bit more convinced if Doonan actually offered some evidence to back up his claims. As it is, I see such thinking as, at best, romantic and, at worst, indicative of slave morality.  

 

Ultimately, some black drag queens are fabulous - and some are not. To say, as Doonan does, that all of them possess "that mystical creative charisma" (88) is just a form of positive stereotyping or benevolent prejudice.  

 

 

III. 

 

Chapter 5 is on drag history - or herstory as Doonan insists on writing, thereby referencing a feminist pun and common etymological misunderstanding. It is, apparently, a brutal, bizarre and cautionary tale, full of "madness and excess" (103). So sounds interesting ...

 

The Ancient Egyptians loved a bit of androgynous glamour and the Greeks and Romans were also keen on drag and traces of transvestism are woven throughout ancient mythology and history. In fact, as Camille Paglia notes, drag is a global phenomenon. 

 

Fast-forwarding to modern Europe (and no one can race through world history faster than Doonan) ... 

 

"The Renaissance was a groovy, swinging period of creative expression and new ideas. Despite the cultural flowering, the Christian Church maintained an unforgiving position regarding the [...] evils of cross-dressing." (114) 

 

Fortunately, however, drag continued to flourish - seeking refuge in the theatre, where there's always been a steady supply of fresh-faced young men eager to don frocks and play the female roles: 

 

"With a bit of padding and extra rouge, a 16-year-old lad might give a convincing portrayal of a 26-year-old woman at the height of her erotic powers." (116)

 

Shakespeare perhaps pushes drag to its meta-most point in As You Like It, a play in which a male actor dresses as a woman, who dresses as a man, who dresses as a woman. Unfortunately, Shakespeare died in 1616, "thereby missing the dawn of the nelliest period in history: the Baroque" (119) [d]. 

 

That's a fun description of the period between 1600-1750, but I can't vouch for its historical accuracy. Indeed, it might be said that the Baroque was not inherently effeminate, but rather characterized by dramatic and ornate styles designed to project masculine power, wealth, and status.

 

While male fashion included elements such as wigs, high heels, and ribbons, these were viewed as lavish, not effeminate. In contrast, the subsequent Rococo period was deemed to be feminine and delicate; light and airy with lots of soft pastel colours and the use of natural forms such as shells and flora in art, interior design, and fashion. 

 

The point is: when reading history, one must be careful not to project one's own values and desires into the past and avoid interpreting events from a perspective shaped by the present. The past is not "a giant gender-inclusive dressing-up box, just waiting to be plundered" (131), no matter what drag performers may choose to believe [e]. 

 

Moving on, this note by Doonan caught my eye: 

 

"There was nothing unisex about the eighteenth-century Brits. Men's attire was butch and militaristic. Women's fashions were ornate and romantic in the extreme. The gendered nature of clothing added massively to the frisson generated by cross-dressing ..." (123)

 

If that's the case - and I think it is the case - then one might ask what's so desirable about dissolving the male/female binary and celebrating gender neutrality; hasn't Doonan just provided a thrilling argument not only for maintaining sexual distance but for widening the gulf? Uni-anything is always boring. 

 

Doonan closes chapter 5 by zooming into the modern (and postmodern) world, beginning in the so-called Mauve Decade of the 1890s when "drag becomes a thing, with a name and a reputation to uphold" (131) [f] and ending up in the present; "an era of relative tolerance where the acceptance and visibility of drag and trans have surged dramatically" (133). 

 

In a paragraph mixing cultural pessimism with political optimism, he writes:

 

"Masculinity is in retreat and gender nonconformity is on the march. Will it last? Some scholars point out that drag and trans have surged in late-stage civilizations [...] and that this freewheeling exploration of identity was immediately followed by sharp decline and total eclipse. Hopefully the prominence of drag and trans in our society is not an augur of doom, but rather a sign of the arrival of a progressive utopia that will last for eternity." (133)   

  

If I were Doonan, I'd keep more than my fingers crossed ... 

 

 

IV. 

 

Comedy drag, says Doonan, is an enduring showbiz staple that continues to amuse; everyone loves a pantomime dame - apart from those, like me, who don't find Christopher Biggins particularly amusing, either in or out of drag [g]. 

 

For Doonan, the dame might be a loveable figure, but, to my mind, she often represents the most banal version of the craft. Whilst glamour drag at least hints at something dangerous and transformative, the comedy drag of the pantomime variety feels too much like a cheap caricature; a way of neutralising the seductive threat of the feminine by turning it into an end of the pier joke. It's drag devoid of anything Medusan. 

 

In fact, Doonan admits as much: 

 

"Comedy drag sprang from a desire to disarm the nightmarish female archetypes of Victorian England [...] Strict governesses, relentless nags, ruler-wielding schoolteachers and cruel stepmothers [...]" (140)

 

Reading this, one might almost think there was something a little misogynistic about it [h], though Doonan says that such drag performance has "obvious psycho-therapeutic benefits" (140) (I'm not quite sure for whom). 

 

Whilst reading between the lines, one suspects Doonan also sees a radical political element to this genre of drag; that it represents an attack on Queen Victoria - "the ultimate disapproving matriarch [... who] unwittingly fuelled the bawdy drag-strewn irreverence of Victorian music halls" (140) - something that really wasn't the case.   

 

For while true that 19th-century British music halls and pantomimes frequently featured drag queens and female impersonators - and whilst satirical commentary was often part of the act - there is no evidence that Queen Victoria was a direct or frequent target of mockery. 

 

Indeed, direct mockery of the monarch was heavily restricted by censorship laws and tempered by the popularity of the Queen amongst her subjects. Any ridicule of the rich and powerful was aimed at the swells, toffs, and big nobs in society - not Her Majesty [i]. 

 

Moving on, Doonan has some interesting things to say about the boom in comedy drag post-Second World War:

 

"The returning troops brought home their enthusiasm for drag and somehow infected the entire population. [...] It is no exaggeration to say that, once the telly started to appear in British living rooms, we Brits began to drown in drag." (147) 

 

He and his best pal loved dressing up in drag and watching comics on the TV dress up in drag. But I guess one has to be that way inclined and, as indicated in a note below - [g] - as a child I was never particularly taken with drag. 

 

Thus, for example, whilst it's true that Benny Hill would perform in drag "in order to generate cheeky-but-family-friendly primetime laughs" (147), he did not invent one single, famous drag character that defined him and I much preferred watching Hill as Fred Scuttle or Ernie the milkman to seeing him in drag.   

 

Things changed in the late '60s, when "gay culture came screaming out of the shadows, with drag following close on its heels" (148). As gay bars, pubs and clubs proliferated, "so did the number of performing drag queens" (148). 

 

But they weren't so family-friendly; "this new wave of drag queens was angry, loud, proud and foul-mouthed" (148) - but also very funny, says Doonan: "The rude and fabulous creativity and comedic talent that gushed forth during this period of new-found freedom is remarkable." (148)

 

Drag, says Doonan, became "more gay, and more postmodern" (149); a sentence that makes smile and which one feels tempted to interrogate, but which I'll pass over due to space restrictions, though one would like to know what Doonan means by the latter term, which he uses on several occasions in his book. I guess he simply means comedy drag became "hipper and more self-aware" (150), for constructing as he is a complete story of drag, I doubt he's overly incredulous towards metanarratives.    

 

And today?

 

"Today, as more and more trans comedians and entertainers take the stage, the face of comedy drag is changing. The bawdy raging postmodern campy humour of pub, club and disco is morphing into something more subtle and emotionally real." (158)

 

I think Doonan is saying that drag has gone woke and is now designed for a new "gender-inclusive generation" (158) who respond less to cruelty and irony and more to vulnerability and victimhood; less Lily Savage and more Justin Vivian Bond, whose act is "infused with a subtle melancholic humour" (159) and promotes values of care, community, and kindness. 

 

The world, says Doonan, "has become a kinder, gentler place" (159) - I have to say, I haven't noticed that here on Harold Hill - and drag queens are spreading a message of "inclusivity, creativity and empowerment" (160). 

 

Unless you happen to be a straight white male, which for Doonan equates with being overbearing, treacherous and Trumpian. Out with toxic masculinity and in with "suave gay metrosexual identity" (160). Who's subscribing to simplistic binary opposition now, Simon?   

 

Notes

 

[a] Page references given in this (in round brackets) refer to the concise paperback edition of this work, published by Laurence King, in 2024.  

 

[b] Surely this is really only true of a few women working in the arts and showbiz ...? I'm not sure that the most successful approach for women in other (traditionally male) environments has been to masquerade as one of the boys - and don't see why they should have to do so just to prove themselves and gain respect. 

 

[c] Having said that, I did write a post earlier this year on voguing (27 Jan 2026) - click here - though it was essentially about Malcolm McLaren and Madonna, rather than the black dancers and drag queens who created the scene. 

 

[d] For those who may be unfamiliar with the term, nelly is a slang word used to describe an overtly effeminate man (not necessarily but more often than not homosexual), who adopts stereotypical feminine behaviours, mannerisms, or interests. Whilst historically used negatively in the straight world, it is sometimes used as an affectionate label within the queer community (as here by Doonan). 

 

[e] Doonan writes: "But history is not all thigh-slapping pastiche and nostalgia. To study the arc of civilization is to be drenched in blood, madness and brutality. Drag and trans, always vulnerabe to shifts in politics, have often felt the cat-o'-nine-tails." (133)

 

[f] Actually, the first recorded use of the term drag in its modern sense was in 1870. It is believed to have originated in theatre slang; male performers playing female roles wore long skirts that would literally trail or drag on the floor.   

 

[g] Come to think of it, I've never really been fond of drag artists. As a child, I grew up watching Danny La Rue on TV, but never found him remotely entertaining and hated his sentimental theme song, 'On Mother Kelley's Doorstep' (a popular music hall number from the 1920s). I also declined all offers to attend a pantomime at Christmas.

      Having said that, I did like Dick Emery's Mandy (Ooh! You are awful ...) and one of my favourite scenes in any of the Carry On films is in Carry On Constable (1960), in which Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey drag up as Ethel and Agatha. I discuss this scene in a post dated 9 April 2022, titled 'Carry On Cross Dressing': click here.   

 

[h] The question of whether drag is misogynistic is a subject of intense debate. Critics argue it creates a grotesque caricature of women, while proponents view it as a celebration of femininity and a subversion of rigid gender norms. 

      It's certainly worth considering if the empowerment of the performers that Doonan celebrates is based upon the mocking exploitation of actual women. Worth recalling too how blackface used to be hugely popular and seen as just a harmless bit of fun. 

      Readers interested (and perhaps undecided) on this issue might like to see two letters published in The Guardian (7 April 2024); one arguing that drag is a sexist caricature, the other that it's a fascinating and fabulous art form: click here.  

[i] Readers might also note that there remains a rumour circulating in certain drag circles that one artist was so popular that Victoria reportedly attended a show in disguise to find out what all the fuss was about. This is most likely an urban legend, but it nevertheless casts further doubt on Doonan's claim that the Queen was completely humourless and/or a target of public ridicule. 

 

 

Part one of this post - on glamour drag and art drag - can be accessed by clicking here. 

 

Part three of this post - on popstar drag, cinema drag, and radical drag - can be accessed here. 

 

Reflections on Simon Critchley's Philosophical Short Cuts (Part 1)

Simon Critchely: Bald (Yale University Press, 2021) 

Essays edited by Peter Catapano 

Cover design by R. Black

 

 

I don't know Simon Critchley: but he's one of the Simons that I can't help admiring and to whom I feel a vague connection, that is part philosophical in nature and part generational; we share many of the same ideas and points of reference and we were all born in the same decade [a]. 

 

Having said that, there are differences between me and the Simons, including Herr Professor Critchley, whose collection of essays Bald (2021) I'd like to discuss here in an amicable if still critical manner. Readers might best see this post then as less the staging of a confrontation or a reckoning [Auseinandersetzung] and more an attempt to offer an insightful commentary in the same kind of engaging, jargon-free - or bold and bald - style that Critchley adopts in this work.  

 

Note: whilst there are thirty-five essays in Bald - all originally published in the New York Times - I'll not be discussing each of them here; just the ones that really catch my interest or which I find particularly provocative [b]. The titles in bold are Critchley's own. And all page numbers refer to the 2021 edition shown above. If the post becomes overly-lengthy - as these posts often do - I'll publish it as two (or possibly even three) parts.   

 

 

Happy Like God  

What is happiness? 

 

In an attempt to answer this question Critchley calls on Rousseau, who provides him with the idea that happiness might simply be the feeling of existence; a feeling that fills the soul entirely. 

 

Perhaps in order to update the language slightly, Critchley reframes this feeling as one of "momentary self-sufficiency that is bound up with the experience of time" [5]. Happiness, in other words, is learning to enjoy the nowness of the present (no regrets and no longing for a better tomorrow). 

 

Achieve a state of joyful reverie and, says Rousseau, you become like God - and Critchley doesn't demur, which is slightly strange for an atheist, but indicates the direction his thinking often takes; i.e., towards secular mysticism (whether this makes him a crypto-theologian more than a critical theorist is a question we can return to later). 

 

And where and when is Critchley happiest? 

 

Sitting by the sea, or in his lover's bed; happiness can be a solitary state, but "one can also experience this feeling of existence in the experience of love" [6]. Maybe: though I'm not sure that love is ever that blissfully straightforward and Critchley is honest enough to admit that even the most oceanic feeling of happiness is outrageously short lived: "Time passes, the reverie ends and the feeling for existence fades." [6].

 

Didn't Goethe once say that no one can enjoy looking at a beautiful sunset for more than a few seconds without getting bored; and I remember also Johnny Rotten once characterising love as less than three minutes of squelching noises. 

 

In other words, we are incapable of being permanently happy (or even happy for long) [c].  

 

 

How to Make It in the Afterlife 

 

As a thanatologist, what I like about Critchley is that, sooner or later and no matter what the topic - he's going to speak about mortality. And sure enough, we quickly pass from happiness to death and the relation between them, which he discusses in relation to ancient Greek philosophy (his other specialist subject). 

 

The key is: live a good life and die a noble death and happiness will be yours. Which means that "happiness does not consist in whatever you might be feeling [...] but in what others feel about you" [13]. 

 

In other words, happiness is something posthumously ascribed - a very unmodern view, but one worth considering; particularly if the adoption of such a view encourages us to live in a more beautiful manner so as to be remembered with smiling fondness.  

 

 

The Gospel According to Me

 

That's a nice title. And it's a crucial short essay attacking the search for individual authenticity, which Critchley rightly recognises is born of a "weak but all-pervasive idea of spirituality [...] and a litugy of inwardness" [15]. 

 

This ideal of authenticity - which was central to existentialism before becoming central to New Age therapeutic culture - is basically a type of selfish conformism; something which "disguises acquisitiveness under a patina of personal growth, mindfulness and compassion" [16]. 

  

Those who think the quest for authenticity is an ethical practice, might be surprised to find Critchley dismiss it as a form of passive nihilism. Passive nihilism and the zen fascism of the 21st century American workplace. For when the office is such a fun place to be and encourages you to be yourself and express yourself, then "there is no room for worker malaise" [17] or class war and in in this way authenticity becomes "an evacuation of history" [17] [d].    

 

I like it when Critchley nails his colours to the mast and pops his political hat on; exposing not just the fantasy of authenticity, but the evils of the workplace - even those that allow us to wear our favourite T-shirt "and listen to Radiohead" [17] on our i-Phones while at our desk. 

 

And I like it too when he relates his philosophical and political critique to literature; pointing out, for example, that Herman Melville, "writing on the cusp of modern capiatlism" [19] in the mid-19th century, had already twigged that "the search for authenticity was a white whale" [19]; i.e., an obsessive quest that is "futile at best and destructive at worst" [19] [e].   

 

 

Abandon (Nearly) All Hope

 

Having demolished the ideal of authenticity, Critchley now attacks the ideal of hope: is it, he asks, such a wonderful thing? 

 

Obviously, I don't think so and I've long been an vociferous opponent of this Christian virtue: see the post dated 6 Feb 2022, for example, on Shep Fairey's Obama poster: click here. Thus, I was pleased to see that Critchley is also hostile to the idea, regarding it from a Graeco-Nietzschean perspective as a form of moral cowardice that "allows us to escape from reality and prolong human suffering" [20].    

 

Hope, says Critchley - contra Obama - is not audacious; it is mendacious; something exploited by our religious teachers and political leaders alike. And what we need is not blind hope but clear-sighted courage in the face of reality (including the courage to abandon hope). 

 

Or, to put that another way, "skeptical realism, deeply informed by history" [25], that knows how to smile like Epictetus (the slave turned Stoic philosopher admired by Nietzsche).    

 

 

What Is a Philosopher? 

 

An idiot who falls down the well (like Thales); or one who takes their time ...? 

 

Probably a combination of both: 

 

"The philosopher [...] is free by virtue of his otherworldliness, by the capacity to fall into wells and appear silly" and this freedom "consists in either moving freely from topic to topic or simply spending years returning to the same topic" [71] [f].   

 

Critchley endorses this Socratic defnition further by agreeing that the philosopher is also one who is indifferent to convention; shows no respect for rank; never joins a political party or a private club. Of course, this kind of attitude and behaviour can get you in trouble - Socrates  was ultimately put on trial and condemned to death for impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens [g]. 

 

Thus, Critchley (amusingly) decides: "Philosophy should come with the kind of health warning one finds on packs of European cigarettes: PHILOSOPHY KILLS" [72]. 

 

It is thus not only a perverse love of wisdom - a form of erōtomaniā (see below) - but a risking of one's own life; i.e., a practice of joy before death. 

 

Critchley concludes (in a slightly confessional, slightly self-dramatising manner):

 

"Nurtured in freedom and taking their time, there is something dreadfully uncanny about philosophers, something either monstrous or godlike, or, indeed, both at once." [73]

 

 

Cynicism We Can Believe In

 

Ancient cynicism is "not at all cynical in the modern sense of the word" [83], writes Critchley. 

 

And that's certainly true; ancient cynicism was a rigorous philosophical way of life that involved self-debasement in order to make its case, whilst modern cynicism, on the other hand, is "an attitude of negativity and jaded scornfulness" [83]; often no more than a fashionable pose.  

 

The modern cynic isn't expected to live like a dog, eat raw squid, or masturbate in the market place and his cynicism lacks the moral and political radicalism of the hardcore cynicism that Diogenes practiced. 

 

But in a world like ours - self-interested, lazy, corrupt, and greedy - "it is Diogenes's lamp that we need to light our path" [85]. Though I think we can do without the flash-wanking or pissing in public, thank you very much.    

 

 

Let Be - An Answer to Hamlet's Question

 

For Heidegger, letting be [Gelassenheit] is a fundamental granting of freedom, born not of indifference, but an active concern for otherness and a refusal to see the world as something to be manipulated and exploited. In other words, it's a form of care. 

 

Critchley - who certainly knows his Heidegger - prefers to think the idea of letting be in relation to Shakespeare's Hamlet, however. In response to the play's famous ontological question - 'To be, or not to be?' - he says 'Let be'. 

 

But in order to let be, requires, he says, the cultivation of "a disposition of skeptical openness that does not claim to know aught of what we truly know naught" [107]. 

 

He elucidates:  

 

"If we can cure ourselves of our longing for some sort of godlike conspectus of what it means to be human, or our longing for the construction of ourselves as some new prosphetic god through technology, bound by the self-satisfied myth of unlimited human progress, we might let be." [107] 

 

I think we can all agree this would be a good thing. But it's not going to happen, of course; man is the creature who just can't help interfering and organising and wanting to be master of the universe; Homo sapien is also Homo importunus.   

  

 

Notes

 

[a] The other Simons include Reynolds and Armitage - see the post dated 17 Jan 2026: click here - and also the monstrous figure of Síomón Solomon; see the post dated 19 Jan 2026: click here. 

 

[b] Readers will note that I don't, for example, refer to any of the five essays in the section entitled 'I Believe'. Essentially, that's because I don't know anything about (or have much interest in) Mormonism, Russian literature (Dostoevsky), or Danish philosophy (Kierkegaard). 

      Nor do I share the (quasi-religious) faith of a football fan and find Critchley's paean to Liverpool FC a bit cringe if I'm honest. Does he really believe that football teaches us something important about our humanity and that being a Red inculcates a set of purely noble values: "solidarity, compassion, internationalism, decency, honour, self-respect and respect for others" [63] -? (Opposing fans sometimes accuse Liverpool supporters of moralising sentimentality and hypocrisy, but we can leave this for another post, another day.) 

      The essay on money - 'Coin of Praise' - I did read and found myself nodding in agreement with the idea that our financial system essentially rests on faith; i.e., money is the most ideal of all material things and our one true God. But saying that didn't seem to justify an entire section in this post.      

 

[c] See the follow up piece entitled 'Beyond the Sea' (pp. 7-11), in which Critchley addresses some of the comments and criticisms he received from readers of 'Happy Like God'. Crucially, he recognises that happiness in the moment is often topped by happiness of the memory of our happiness in the moment; that the best kind of happiness isn't ecstatic, but melancholic.  

 

[d] Michel Foucault famously dismissed what he called the Californian cult of the self in comparison to the ethico-aesthetic stylisation of self as practiced by the ancient Greeks and modern dandies. See 'On the Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview of Work in Progress', in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (Penguin Books, 1991), p. 359. 

      And see also what Foucault writes on the 'arts of existence' and 'techniques of self' in The History of Sexuality 2: The Use of Pleasure, trans. Robert Hurley (Penguin Books, 1992). 

 

[e] Critchley also refers to his hero Shakespeare, reminding readers that no one is more inauthentic than Hamlet and that the depiction of his radical inauthenticity "shatters our moral complacency" [19] as witnesses to the drama that unfolds.    

 

[f] I would suggest that just as there are two types of philosophical freedom, so too are there are two types of philosopher; I belong to the first type, who flit from topic to topic; my friend Síomón Solomon belongs to the latter type and enjoys the freedom to return and ruminate upon the same problems over and over. This naturally enough produces a different type of thinking and writing style.

 

[g] Critchley notes: "Nothing is more common in the history of philosophy than the accusation of impiety" and philosophy has "repeatedly and persistently been identified with blasphemy against the gods" [72]. Because their attitude is perceived (rightly or wrongly) as one of not giving a fuck, philosophers are often regarded as "politically suspicious, even dangerous" [72].

 

 

Part 2 of this post can be accessed by clicking here.  

 

Prince, Oh Prince of Darkness: Notes on the Case of Peter Mandelson

Lord Peter Mandelson 

(The Prince of Darkness) 

 

'He who knows not that the Prince of Darkness is also the King of Light, knows nothing ...'  

 

 

I. 

 

The Prince of Darkness is a term used in John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost (1667) [1], referring to Satan as the embodiment of evil. 

 

It is an English translation of the Latin phrase princeps tenebrarum, which occurs in the Gospel of Nicodemus (aka the Acts of Pilate), thought to have been written in the 4th or 5th century. 

 

It is, in my view, by far the loveliest of Satan's titles - much nicer than Lord of the Flies - one which makes the Devil sound like a true gentleman [2], whereas Beelzebub suggests some sort of exalted dustman.

 

The Prince of Darkness, however, is also one of the nicknames given to the Labour Party politician, lobbyist and diplomat, Peter Mandelson, who - as many readers will know - is back in the headlines at the moment ...

 

 

II. 

 

Mandelson's long (and hugely successful) career has famously been marked by controversy, which resulted in his twice resigning from the Cabinet and recently being dismissed as British Ambassador to the United States, after a scandal emerged concerning his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, an American financier and convicted child sex offender who died, in somewhat fishy circumstances, whilst in his prison cell, in 2019 [3].    

 

To be honest, before this latest scandal I knew very little about Mandelson (and cared even less). But now, knowing a bit more, I find I'm increasingly sympathetic; I certainly prefer him to Starmer, whether or not he passed on sensitive government information to Epstein and whether or not he's a corrupt moral monster of some sort.     

 

In fact, for me there's something a bit Wildean about Mandelson, as well as something diabolical. For like Wilde, Mandelson is outrageously reckless in the face of danger and forever flirting with scandal (behaviour driven, I'm told by a friend of mine who knows about this sort of thing, by a combination of psychological factors, including arrogance, hubris, and a belief in his own exceptionality).  

 

 

III.

 

Of course, I'm by no means the first to feel this way about Mandelson (to be taken in by his seductive charm, if you like).  

 

Way back in 2001, the innovation expert and social policy consultant Charles Leadbeater wrote a piece in The Guardian on his friend Mandelson, whom, he said, was an inspired political visionary who enriches British public life.   

 

Mandelson, Leadbeater continued, could think outside the box and had the "stamina, professionalism and attention to detail" [4] to push through significant change: "He made things happen when many around him simply talked. He was not afraid to take on fights when more cautious and calculating souls cowered." [5] 

 

Conceding that Mandelson has certain character flaws - including vanity and arrogance - Leadbeater points out that this is true of most politicians. And so, what if he likes the high life and his head is too easily turned by the rich and famous - at least he isn't boring and he dares to be different:

 

"That is why I like and support Peter Mandelson. In a political class marked by its limited imagination, Peter had the capacity not just to think big, but to deliver as well. He dared to stand up and stand out. Now he has been hammered back into place. The Oscar Wilde of modern politics, he embraced the establishment and challenged convention in the same movement. Those who were unsettled by his daring are the ones celebrating this weekend." [6]

 

That is a paragraph which is both uncannily resonant and extraordinarily pertinent to the present discussion of the Mandelson case.   

 

 

IV.  

 

In closing, I would like to refer readers to a spoof piece in The Daily Mash informing us that as well as losing his government post and stepping down from the House of Lords, Mandelson "will no longer be referred to as the Prince of Darkness or enjoy the benefits of the title [...] because he is a terrible representative of Satanism and the hellish underworld" [7].  

 

Continuing in the same satirical manner, the article quotes a spokesman who confirms that Mandelson has "disgraced the good name of the Devil" [8] by fawning over Epstein, rather than fulfilling his public duty of challenging God's authority and leading others into temptation. Thus, from now on Mandelson will no longer be able to possess souls, "shapeshift, or control the dead" [9].  

 

Notes

 

[1] See Book 10, line 383: click here to read online (The John Milton Reading Room).   

 

[2] See Shakespeare's King Lear (1606), Act III, scene IV, line 151: "The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman." Click here to read online (Folger Shakespeare Library). 

 

[3] Mandelson's friendship with Epstein, which had been publicly known about for some years, spanned at least from 2002 to 2011 (i.e., it had continued even after Epstein's 2008 conviction in Florida for soliciting prostitution from a minor).

 

[4-6] Charles Leadbeater, 'My friend the political visionary', in The Guardian (28 Jan 2001): click here.  

 

[7-9] See the article 'Peter Mandelson stripped of Prince of Darkness title', in The Daily Mash (6 Feb 2026): click here.  

 

Musical bonus: Bow Wow Wow performing their 1981 single 'Prince of Darkness' on German TV: click here to watch on YouTube (80s Rec.)

 

 

Queer as Punk

A punk bromance: Sid 💘 Johnny

 

'Punk is a challenge to reconsider everything you do, think or feel; 

including the ways that you love.' [1]

 

 

I. 

 

In the second volume of his memoirs - Anger is an Energy  (2014) - Johnny Rotten flatly denies the persistent rumour that he and Vicious, unlike Cook and Jones, were more than just good friends ... 

 

Perhaps one reason why this romantic myth continues to resonate is because before becoming a term used by the media to identify a form of rock music that emerged in the 1970s, the word punk had a long subcultural history rooted in illicit and deviant sexual activity.   

 

In the 16th century, for example, it was used by writers including Shakespeare as a synonym for a female prostitute and spelt rather charmingly as puncke [2]. By the late 17th century, however, it had taken on a different meaning and described a youth who is provided for by an older man in exchange for certain favours. 

 

This queer [3] etymology takes on renewed significance when one recalls the story of the Sex Pistols; an anarchic collective held together with safety pins and bondage straps which included a far wider and more diverse group of people than the actual members of the band [4]. 

 

The teens who spent their time hanging around 430 King's Road challenged heteronormative values with their behaviour, attitude, and appearance; cheerfully wearing T-shirts designed by McLaren and Westwood which included images drawn from gay porn, including homosexual cowboys, nude adolescents, and well-endowed American footballers [5].     

And so, whilst both Rotten and Vicious were for the most part straight in terms of their sexual orientation, their emphasis on non-conformity, free expression, and open acceptance of gay culture - the band and their followers would often socialise in the early days at a lesbian member's club in Soho called Louise's - was positively received within the queer community at that time.    

 

 

II. 

 

Notwithstanding what I say above, I think we should be wary of retrospectively romanticising the story of the Sex Pistols, or imposing contemporary theoretical interpretations concerning queer sexual politics and identities on to the reality of the UK punk scene in the 1970s. I don't want to be the person who says let's stick to the facts at every opportunity, but I would agree that any analysis showing a flagrant disregard for historical accuracy seems of little real value or interest.   

 

Further, as David Wilkinson points out, "once punk is separated from rooted judgement through failure to locate it within a particular conjuncture, its politics can be celebrated as uniformly positive" [6] and that's a problem: the Sex Pistols did not promise to make things better and punk wasn't entirely gay friendly; there remained elements of homophobia within it (just as there did of racism, sexism, and reactionary stupidity).   

Ultimately, for McLaren and Westwood, same-sex passion was seen as something with which to confront and discomfort the English; they wished to weaponise it, not promote gay liberation or simply camp things up for the fun of it: 

"Given [their] positioning of same-sex passion as alienated, perverse and violent, it is unsurprising that McLaren and Westwood not only seemed to have little interest in the radically transformative aims of gay liberation, but were also prone to homophobic gestures that were calculated to shock in their contempt of even reformist demands for respect, understanding and openness." [7]

 

Ultimately, as Wilkinson says, McLaren and Westwood's "was an idiosyncratic, peculiarly hybrid kind of politics, especially in relation to sexuality" [8]; one based on the radical understanding of desire as "an instinctive, irrational force capable of disrupting social norms once unanchored from the private sphere" [9], but they weren't interested in how to further loving relationships, same-sex or otherwise.   

 

And as for Johnny and Sid, for better or worse, they were more romantically fixated on Nora and Nancy than one another.   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm paraphrasing Pete Shelley writing in the second issue of his self-produced punk fanzine Plaything (1978): click here. 

 

[2] Shakespeare used the word, for example, in Measure for Measure (1603-04), where Lucio suggests that since Mariana is 'neither maid, widow, nor wife', she may 'be a Puncke’ (Act 5, scene 1).

[3] I am using this term here as one that includes same-sex desire, but which is not synonymous with such. If it were up to me, as someone who finds the empty secret of non-identity philosophically more interesting than the open secret of same-sex desire, I would restrict use of the word queer to refer to forms of practice and behaviour that have nothing to do with sexuality or gender. 

      See the post of 16 March 2025, in which I discuss the term: click here. 

[4] When I think of the Sex Pistols, I certainly don't just think of Steve Jones, Paul Cook, Glen Matlock, and Johnny Rotten, but also of Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood, Jamie Reid, Jordan, Soo Catwoman, Helen of Troy, and various members of the so-called Bromley Contingent. 

 

[5] David Wilkinson makes the important point that these designs "deliberately inhabited dominant understandings of unsanctioned sexuality as perverse, sordid and violent in order to provoke a reaction" and that McLaren and Westwood were not consciously offering a set of alternative values. 

      See Wilkinson's excellent essay 'Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t Have?): Punk, Politics and Same-Sex Passion', in Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism, No. 13 (2015), pp. 57-76. The line quoted from is on p. 64. 

 

[6] David Wilkinson, ibid., p. 59.

[7] Ibid., p. 65. 

 

[8] Ibid., p. 62.

 

[9] Ibid., p. 63.  

Musical bonus: Tom Robinson Band, 'Glad to be Gay', from the EP Rising Free (EMI Records, 1978): click here. 

 

 

Festina Lente: Or How An Artist Can Learn to Be Quick Even When Standing Still

Festina lente - a design by the famous Renaissance period 

printer and publisher Aldus Manutius, featuring a dolphin 

curled round an anchor

I.

 

A recent post on the politics of accelerationism contra slowness - click here - seems to have caused a degree of confusion amongst one or two readers. 

 

So, just to be clear: whilst suggesting that it might restore a degree of sovereignty to hop off the bus headed nowhere fast and take it easy while the world goes crazy [1], I'm not advocating a politics or a philosophy of inertia. 

 

For inertia not only implies unmoving but also unchanging and my thinking is closely tied to an idea of difference and becoming, not remaining essentially the same or having a fixed identity. 

 

Further, I'm of the view that quickness has nothing to do with running around like a headless chicken; that one can, as Deleuze and Guattari point out, "be quick, even when standing still" [2], just as one can journey in intensity without travelling round the globe like a tourist.

 

 

II.

 

Of course, this isn't a particularly new idea. 

 

One might recall the Classical Latin adage: festina lente, meaning make haste slowly [3]; a saying which has been adopted as a personal motto by everyone from Roman emperors to American sports coaches, via members of the Medici family and the Cuban Communist Party.  

 

Lovers of Shakespeare will know that the Bard frequently alluded to this idea in his work; as did the 17th century French fabulist Jean de la Fontaine in his famous fable (adapted from Aesop's original) concerning a hare and tortoise (the latter being praised for his wisdom in hastening slowly).   

 

My only concern with this is that moralists see making haste slowly as a matter of policy; i.e. a form of prudent conduct that protects one from making mistakes and as someone who values error and imperfection and failure - who sees these things as crucial to the making of challenging art, for example - that's problematic (to say the least).     

 

 

III.

 

And so I return to Deleuze and Guattari, because their rhizomatic idea of being quick, even whilst standing still, is not one that can be used to negate the creation of radically new art ...

 

According to the above, a painting, for example, is an assemblage of lines, shapes, colours, textures, and movements that "produce phenomena of relative slowness and viscosity, or, on the contrary, of acceleration and rupture" [4]. In other words, just as it's formed from different material elements, so too is it made up of different speeds and comparative rates of flow.      

   

And sometimes, these things converge on a plane of consistency [5] - but that's not to say the composition is ever perfect or free from error; nor that the artist who, purely out of habit and convention, signs their name on the work has succeeded and can now sit back and admire their own canvas. 

 

A painting is never really finished and whilst I can sympathise with artists who are often gripped with the urge to destroy their own pictures, I have never really understood those who place their canvases in golden frames and are genuinely pleased to see them hanging on a gallery wall.    

 

If an artist wishes to be quick, even when standing still, then, according to Deleuze and Guattari, they must learn to paint to the nth degree and that means (amongst other things) making maps not just preliminary drawings, and coming and going from the middle where things pick up speed, rather than attempting to start from the beginning and finish at the end (something that implies a false conception of movement) [6].  

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm referencing here a lyric from the Killing Joke song 'Kings and Queens', released as a single from the album Night Time (E.G. Records, 1985).

 

[2] Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi (The Athlone Press, 1988), p. 24. 

[3]  This Latin phrase is translated from the Classical Greek σπεῦδε βραδέως (speûde bradéōs). 

[4] Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus ... p. 4. 

[5] In art, composition refers to the arrangement and organisation of various elements within a work to create a cohesive and aesthetically pleasing whole. 

      But by a plane of consistency, Deleuze and Guattari refer to something that opposes this and which consists only in the "relations of speed and slowness between unformed elements" [ATP 507]; there is no finality or unification. A plane of consistency, therefore, doesn't aim to produce aesthetic pleasure, so much as open up a zone of indeterminacy and a continuum of intensity upon which new thoughts and feelings can unfold and interact without being constrained by pre-existing ideas and emotions. 

      In sum: it's a kind of virtual realm of infinite possibilities. See the post dated 23 May 2013 in which I discuss this and related ideas with reference to Deleuze and Guattari's fourth and final book together, What Is Philosophy? - click here. 

 

[6] See Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus ... pp. 24-25.

Eye of the Tiger

Thou hast no speculation in those eyes ...[1]

 

 

It's disconcerting enough when Phoevos the cat sits and stares at me, particulary if naked like Derrida [2], so it must be almost unimaginably awkward (and significantly more frightening) to be caught in the gaze of a tiger ...

 

I'm told that thanks to a mirror-like structure behind the retina called the tapetum lucidum their night vision is far superior to ours, but that they don't see such a wide range of colours. It's movement that catches their attention and shape that they focus on; not hues, tints, and tones. But then, tigers are primarly concerned with stalking prey, not admiring the chromatic splendour of their environment. 

 

According to D. H. Lawrence, who knows a good few things on the subject of animal vision, the tiger is, in a sense, almost blind to the rest of the world, absorbed as it is in its own fullness of being:

 

"The eyes of the tiger cannot see, except with the light from within itself, by the light of its own desire. Its own white, cold light is so fierce that the other warm light of the day is outshone, it is not, it does not exist. So the white eyes of the tiger gleam to a point of concentrated vision, upon that which does not exist. Hence its terrifying sightlessness." [3]   

 

The tiger, inasmuch as it sees us at all, sees nothing but a rather insubstantial meal. The superior being which we like to think we are, is rendered null and void; we are almost hollow in his eyes, like animated scarecrows, or, at best, creatures that have lost their healthy animal reason [4]:

"It can only see of me that which it knows I am, a scent, a resistance, a voluptuous solid, a struggling warm violence that it holds overcome, a running of hot blood between its teeth, a delicious pang of live flesh in the mouth. This it sees. The rest is not." [5]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 3, scene 4, line 94.

 

[2] See Jacques Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am, trans. David Wills (Fordham University Press, 2008). 

      In this work, Derrida discusses his experience of being stared at by his cat, Logos, whilst undressed. He describes a sense of discomfort - even shame - of being gazed upon in his all too human nakedness and all too naked humanity. 

      See also the post on TTA dated 5 Jan 2018 entitled 'When I Play With My Cat ... (Notes Towards a Feline Philosophy)': click here.  

[3] D. H. Lawrence, Twilight in Italy and Other Essays, ed. Paul Eggert (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 118.

 

[4] I'm thinking here of a famous section in Nietzsche's, The Gay Science (III. 224), where he writes: 

      "I fear that the animals consider man as a being like themselves that has lost in a most dangerous way its sound animal common sense; they consider him the insane animal, the laughing animal, the weeping animal, the miserable animal." 

      This is Walter Kaufmann's translation of the original German text (Vintage Books, 1974), p. 211. 

 

[5] D. H. Lawrence, Twilight in Italy ... p. 118.

      Readers interested in what else Lawrence writes about tigers, might like to see the post on TTA dated 4 Oct 2023: click here. Although not one of Lawrence's totemic animals, nevertheless the tiger often appears within his work and held an important place in his philosophical imagination as one of the great realities of reality; i.e., a living thing that has come into its own fullness of being.