I.
I'm not a great fan or follower of the journalist Brendan O'Neill, but as an atheistic libertarian he often writes things that cut across aspects of my own thinking (or, as critics would say, reinforce my own fears and prejudices).
Thus, for example, I was interested to read a recent column in The Spectator in which O'Neill expresses his irritation at London Pride; the UK's largest queer celebration which sees rainbow flags hanging from virtually every public building and branded on just about every conceivable product you may wish to purchase in order to show your support for the LGBT+ community and the sinister political project known as diversity.
Thus, for example, I was interested to read a recent column in The Spectator in which O'Neill expresses his irritation at London Pride; the UK's largest queer celebration which sees rainbow flags hanging from virtually every public building and branded on just about every conceivable product you may wish to purchase in order to show your support for the LGBT+ community and the sinister political project known as diversity.
Like O'Neill, I'm perfectly happy to commemorate the Stonewall riots and welcome many of the social, political and cultural changes that have unfolded over the last fifty years vis-à-vis the rights of sexual minorities. I might not fetishise notions of freedom and equality, or posit them as ideals over and above all other considerations, but neither do I wish to live in a time or place where these things are denied.
But, like O'Neill, I also find it depressing to see a genuinely radical event co-opted by governments, corporations and the media and pinkwashed into a bland (and virtually mandatory) spectacle informed by a needy and therapeutic politics of identity:
"It’s no longer enough to leave homosexuals alone to live however they choose and to inflict on them no persecution or discrimination or any ill-will whatsoever on the basis of their sexuality, which is absolutely the right thing for a civilised liberal society to do. No, now you have to validate their identity and cheer their life choices."
Now, we must all assemble - cisgender heterosexuals included - beneath the omnipresent bloody rainbow and condemn anyone who refuses to do so as a political heretic.
II.
Actually, the very word pride is problematic, philosophically speaking, due to the fact that it has both negative and positive connotations. It is, for example, often used as a synonym for the Greek term hubris and refers thus to a destructively excessive or self-indulgent quality. It certainly isn't an unambiguously virtuous concept as Aristotle and the organisers of Pride events seem to believe.
Thus, I'm always rather suspicious of people who speak insistently in terms of pride; particularly those who belong to sexual or racial minorities, as they have a tendency to overcompensate for feelings of low self-esteem and guilt born of a long history of oppression and marginalisation.
Indeed, it could be argued that pride which has been determined by such a history is simply shame on the recoil, or what Nietzsche would characterise as a revolt in morals and is thus still contained within the same old dialectic rather than part of a genuine revaluation of values ...
Ultimately, the old slogan gay is good is as mistaken as the homophobic view that gay is evil (and for the same reason).
Now, we must all assemble - cisgender heterosexuals included - beneath the omnipresent bloody rainbow and condemn anyone who refuses to do so as a political heretic.
II.
Actually, the very word pride is problematic, philosophically speaking, due to the fact that it has both negative and positive connotations. It is, for example, often used as a synonym for the Greek term hubris and refers thus to a destructively excessive or self-indulgent quality. It certainly isn't an unambiguously virtuous concept as Aristotle and the organisers of Pride events seem to believe.
Thus, I'm always rather suspicious of people who speak insistently in terms of pride; particularly those who belong to sexual or racial minorities, as they have a tendency to overcompensate for feelings of low self-esteem and guilt born of a long history of oppression and marginalisation.
Indeed, it could be argued that pride which has been determined by such a history is simply shame on the recoil, or what Nietzsche would characterise as a revolt in morals and is thus still contained within the same old dialectic rather than part of a genuine revaluation of values ...
Ultimately, the old slogan gay is good is as mistaken as the homophobic view that gay is evil (and for the same reason).
See: Brendan O'Neill, 'Why I'm Sick of Pride', The Spectator (6 July, 2019): click here.
