Reflections on 19th Century Anarchism From Reading *The Proud Tower*.

Barbara Tuchman’s The Proud Tower permits mediation on what is truly admirable about 19^th Century anarchism. The range of expression of lifetime commitment, from the fiery leading intelligence of Michael Bakunin to the quiet intellectual preoccupation of Jean Grave is compelling. “In a fifth-floor garret in a working-class street, the Rue Moffetard,” after his imprisonment, Grave “edited, largely wrote, and printed on a hand press ‘La Revolte,’ at the same time working on his great history Le Mouvement Libertaire Sous la Troisieme Republique’” (Tuchman, p. 86). For one inclined to reading and writing, such a depiction is immensely seductive. But it is the life-long active engagement, the passionate dedication to the well-being of others, that is most impressive.

There was a romantic faith in human nature among these idealists. “The Anarchists believed that with Property, the monarch of all evil, eliminated, no man could again live off the labor of another and human nature would be released to seek its natural level of justice among men. The role of the State would be replaced by voluntary cooperation among individuals and the role of the law by the supreme law of the general welfare” (Tuchman, p. 73). A pause in appreciation of Barbara Tuchman’s even-handedness. While she was not an anarchist, Tuchman’s ability to sympathetically portray a group, who is remembered by most of her fellow mainstream historians for inspiring violence, is commendably open-minded. The Proud Tower’s chapter, entitled “The Idea and the Deed,” is a valuable, 61 page, encapsulation of anarchist history between 1890-1914.

But romantic vision and commitment was not enough to ensure success. From the distance of more than a century, we have available hindsight. As modern individuals looking backward, we can see some problems with the views of 19^th Century anarchists that are readily visible to us, but were not apparent to them. Violence, in the form of assassination and public bombings, is repudiated by almost all contemporary, thinking anarchists. This is the case for both practical and philosophical reasons. Practically speaking, the numerous attacks of the late 1800s did not make Western Civilization receptive to anarchist principles. Anarchists of that century learned too late that the masses, whom these acts were meant to support, were horrified by the attacks. Workers tended to rally to the victims of bombings rather than to the banner of anarchism. As for the bourgeoisie, they simply stiffened their resolve and rallied more fervently around their State and capitalist systems. Expecting bourgeois citizens of various countries to surrender, is as unreasonable as the similar expectation of 21^st Century Radical Islam, that the West will surrender its permissive, democratic culture because its people are terrorized.

Philosophically, attempting to create a utopia by employing violence or, in the words of Audre Lorde, using “the Master’s tools” to “dismantle the Master’s house” (Lorde, p. 110), will only create an authoritarian outcome. With the numerous examples of history available to them (Robespierre comes to mind) the anarchists of that time should have known that terror results in suffocating fear, demagoguery and oppressive regimes.

The times being what they were, there were also misunderstandings of human biology that certainly effected the thinking of anarchists living in that period. Natural Selection was so new, and genetics so poorly understood, that wrong-headed assumptions about human nature persisted. There was a naïve, utopian notion that humans would “return” to a mythical state of grace where everyone shares and cooperates. Humans have as many, if not more, selfish impulses built into their genetic composition as they do cooperative ones. We are the current product of simpler animals, who survived to evolve by clawing their way to the top of the food chain. Yes, there was some cooperation exhibited, but primarily within one’s tribe or group. Primate behavior and history both teach us that outsiders are violently attacked and driven-off if they encroached on the resources or food supply of one’s group. As humans evolved, stronger tribes subjugated weaker tribes and used their labor to create what we ironically call civilization.  The golden age, where a multi-ethnic collection of human families sat around a campfire singing folk songs and eating vegan cheese, is nothing more than a wishful fantasy. For a more extended discussion of the opportunistic tendency in human behavior, without which we would not have survived, I refer the reader to Richard Dawkins’ masterful work The Selfish Gene.

Nineteenth Century anarchists, from Proudhon to Kropotkin, elaborate their utopian vision of how, once governments were abolished, people would divide resources.  They discussed ideas like the equitable division of land among farmers and the pooling of food or goods into vast storehouses. Kropotkin “had the plans for the kingdom already drawn” (Tuchman, p. 83). But any such system would undoubtedly create a governmental structure to gather resources and administer fair distribution. After the destruction of all governments, we would certainly build one again for this purpose. Governments, over time, make themselves larger, not smaller. Bureaucrats find new reasons to create more work and accrue more power to make their departments larger, more important, better funded. They end-up controlling more aspects of life. What might begin as a benevolent distribution of resources would end in another State system of control. The paradox of anarchism’s antipathy towards organization, when considered alongside the need for organization before, during and after a revolution, was never a contradiction that activists of that era could resolve.

Finally, there is the problem that Bakunin himself elaborated at the end of his life. Discussing the failure of revolution in his lifetime, Bakunin wrote to his wife “we reckoned without the masses who did not want to be roused to passion for their own freedom…This passion being absent what good did it do us to have been right theoretically? We were powerless.” Tuchman goes on to say “he despaired of saving the world and died, disillusioned, in 1876” (Tuchman, pp. 75-6).

Whatever criticisms we have of thought or action among these idealists, they did make a contribution to the individualism, and perhaps even the freedom, of humanity. Given Tuchman’s historical balance, she should have the last word before we move on to current anarchism:

“However self-limited its acts, however visionary its dream, Anarchism had terribly dramatized the war between the two divisions of society, between the world of privilege and the world of protest. In the one it shook awake a social conscience; in the other, as its energy passed into Syndicalism, it added its quality of violence and extremism to the struggle for power of organized labour. It was an idea which drew men to follow it; but because of its built-in paradox could not draw them together into a group capable of concerted action. It was the last cry of individual man, the last movement among the masses on behalf of individual liberty, the last hope of living unregulated, the last fist shaken against the encroaching State, before the State, the party, the union, the organization closed in” (Tuchman, p. 132).

Despite this praised-filled post-mortem, there are anarchists pursuing a vision today. Modern anarchists generally do not make the mistakes of their 19^th Century predecessors. For the most part, they repudiate violence, have a more scientific understanding of genetics/selfishness, shy away from prognosticating on utopias, and have fewer illusions about the commitment of the masses to social change. While these current perspectives result in a more sound political acumen, they do not aid in fostering a revolution. On the contrary, these contemporary understandings hamper efforts towards creating constructive plans and actions. As a result, 21^st Century anarchism is far more a philosophy than a movement.

Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider. Freedom: The Crossing Press, 1984.

Tuchman, Barbara W. The Proud Tower. New York: Bantam Books, 1989.

God and Incest. The Bible Reconsidered.

Incestuous sex is perhaps the most psychologically destructive crime a parent can inflict upon a child. But the Bible is rife with incest and supports it.

Let us begin with God’s example of the most righteous man on Earth for his time: Lot. Lot is so good that he is the only man whom God saves from the destruction of Sodom and Go-mor’rah. Putting aside, for a moment, the notion that our Heavenly Father murdering all of the people in two cities, and their babies, is a colossal parental overreaction that makes The-Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He the greatest mass murderer of all time; let’s stay with Gods fondness for incest.

After God’s decent, compassionate and irreproachable, immolation of the area’s city dwellers, Lot’s daughters find themselves without sexual partners. The two siblings do what any well-raised girls would do in such circumstances; they “made their father drink wine that night: and the first born went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose” (Genesis 19:33). Righteous man? Let’s say your neighbor returns your lawnmower one Sunday and starts telling you about a real bender he went on the night before. “Man, I blacked-out, and when I woke-up this morning I learned that I’d had sex with my daughter.” Okay, I’m a humanist and I try not to be judgmental. But I think I’d probably fail in that circumstance. A guy who drinks with his daughters until he blacks-out, then claims he’s not responsible when he finds-out that he’s had sex with his eldest, then later learns that he’s gotten her pregnant, is not blameless. Especially if he does it two nights in a row; once with his elder daughter and once with his younger daughter (Genesis 19:35). I would not want this guy coaching my kid’s soccer team.

And where is God in all of this? He’s all-knowing. God’s right there talking to Lot like some celestial weatherman: “Cloudy with a chance of brimstone; bring an umbrella today in your commute from Sodom.” Why isn’t the Holy One telling his pal Lot about the special wine tasting his daughters have planned? Does God have a voyeuristic kink for watching incest? He does permit a great deal of it in the Old Testament. He does see everything. I would think that he’d prefer the ancestry of his chosen people a little less inbred.

Sure, the Christians at this point may want to distance themselves a bit from the Old Testament. “Those crazy Jews with their talking snakes, genocidal floods and daughters gone wild, they’re the Banjo Boy in Deliverance to our respectable New Testament. Not a chance. In their story, God actually gets off the couch where he’s been watching the father-daughter monkey show and becomes an active participant. You see, God is not the self-described “jealous and angry” sky father deity of the Old Testament; he’s actually your father in the New Testament. “And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven” (Matthew 23:9). Admittedly, this is a Supreme Being ad campaign superior to that of the Old Testament, but it does open the Creator up for a bit of criticism when he impregnates one of his daughters. Mary is told by an angel “the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). One would think that an all-powerful being could bring his son into the world without entering the womb of his daughter. But, as we have already seen, this is not how God rolls.

Christians can argue all they want about how God entered Mary without breaking her hymen. First of all, that does not mean that it’s okay to put a baby into your daughter. Let’s say some dad walks up to you on the playground. He says “see that kid with your child in the sandbox? He’s my son. Funny story: he’s an in vitro fertilization of my sperm and my daughter’s ovum. But don’t worry, nothing weird happened and she’s still a virgin. You see, my daughter being a virgin is so important to me that the incision was abdominal so that the procedure wouldn’t break her hymen.” I don’t know about you, but I’d probably move away from him. I am so judgmental. Secondly, that little membrane of skin covering Mary’s vagina was certainly demolished when her pelvic muscles blasted the Lamb of God onto the physical plane. 

How about the argument that this was a spiritual penetration and conception with ethereal semen. Well, isn’t that a bigger deal to a group who prizes the spiritual above the physical? Doesn’t that make the violation worse?

For those of a Judeo-Christian bent who like to pick and choose their Bible stories, sorry, there is no room for ignoring or interpreting actions in the Bible. Its words are divinely inspired. If God is a perfect being owed unquestioning allegiance, then questioning or ignoring the words he inspires is not within the ability of a common mortal believer. One’s personal interpretation is actually a disobedient, blasphemous transgression. For a believer, the words must stand on their own as truthful testimony: Lot got drunk on two separate occasions and impregnated both of his daughters. The all-powerful, all-knowing deity did not intervene despite he and Lot being on speaking terms. God himself put a baby in Mary. You can either accept that the Bible is divine truth, or accept that it’s a bunch of myths that contain some repugnant activities on the part of God and his most pious followers.

The Holy Bible. King James Edition. Philadelphia: National Publishing Company, 1978.

Living Without God by Ronald Aronson.

I must say that I have never read an atheist self-help book prior to this. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was not insipid. Aronson has a more extensive grasp of academic philosophy, history and science, than most writers in this category. He uses all of these intellectual weapons, albeit selectively, to let his skeptical readers know (to misquote Bob Marley) that everything can be alright with the proper approach.

His optimism, while never the uncritical “happy, happy, happy” of the self-help set, is persistent, though qualified. For example, his chapter entitled “The World on Our Shoulders” discusses human suffering and social responsibility. The existence of such a chapter is the first difference one should note between Aronson and pop-psych gurus: some of the chapters are not focused inwardly on personal, self-absorbing problems. The author sees humans as part of nature and necessarily connected to the world. In tackling social issues, he relies upon empiricism and individual interpretation of what one is seeing. Aronson makes it clear that we have a choice in our behavior; nothing in outcome is pre-determined or dictated to us. Regarding national issues of racism and economic inequality, “whether or not we see clearly depends on a fundamental choice of perception: do we see ourselves as isolated, separate individuals, or instead recognize ourselves as belonging to, and depending on, a wider world…Accepting responsibility for this means first acknowledging that we all belong to a community” (Aronson, pp. 80-81). The author makes it clear that, even if one were to recognize their membership in a community and act accordingly, the road to justice is still long and victory is uncertain. Instead of the absolute confidence that we will attain equality, he concludes that we are working “toward a time when every human being achieves…full human dignity” (Aronson, p. 89).

In reading Living Without God, I had to consider what value such a book might have to a community as individualist and decentralized as ours. Atheists don’t need a catechism. Of course we do have a few rather dogmatic thinkers among our community. Some are still stuck: angry at their dads or defining themselves by their opposition to the religion in which they were raised. But by and large, we’re pretty independent. Our strength resides in choosing our own paths through life. As a result, there can be as many atheisms as there are individuals who call themselves atheists. So why read a book that lays-out one person’s personal plan? Perhaps because it is an opportunity to bounce the author’s perceptions off of your own, comparing your thoughts and strategies with those of another rational, evidence-based individual. It’s an occasion to meditate on some questions, agreeing or disagreeing as you choose, sifting through Aronson’s thoughts and yours on the topics of the chapters (gratitude for life, facing death, hope, social responsibility), finding the views and methods that fit your life. If there are important subjects that Aronson has, in your mind, failed to address, then it’s time for you to write your own book.

Aronson, Ronald. Living Without God. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2008.

American Lion by Jon Meacham.

American Lion is the product of Newsweek editor and popular author Jon Meacham. It follows Andrew Jackson’s life in a chronological fashion. However, the greatest portion of the book is focused upon the seventh president’s White House years, with short chapters on life before and after his two terms. Centering the narrative on Jackson’s political career allows the author to spend more time on issues of the period that are most important to US political history.

The book begins with a bombastic prologue concerning South Carolina’s threatened secession. Meacham presents a dramatic play for the dim-witted. “It looked like war” is the opening line, attempting to grab the reader with crass emotionalism. “Jackson pounded a table as he pondered the crisis: ‘By the God of Heaven, I will uphold the laws’” (Meacham, p. xvii). It’s Macbeth with a twang. But this is Meacham’s merchandise. He is a magazine huckster writing to entice enough public to insure a best seller. Once he has baited his hook with enough banality to lure his mediocre-brow fish, Meacham settles-in to write a capable biography. Though he never abandons the qualities of forced sentimentality and theatrical excitability which attract literate infants with shiny things, his biography is well-informed.

The author has a little used, but effective means of providing citation. Notes appear at the end of the book. They are not designated a number as is traditional. Instead, a preceding number denotes the page on which a reference may be found. This permits one to easily examine the book’s evidence page by page. It is a sensible enough method that the reviewer cannot determine whether it or the traditional means of documentation is superior. Meacham is meticulous in his offering of citation. Here we see the positive influence of his journalism background.

The author can be a bit too forgiving of his subject’s personal failings. For example, Jackson campaigned for his Vice President (Van Buren) in the latter’s White House bid. At the same time, the dearest woman in his life (his niece Emily) was dying of tuberculosis. He chose political priorities over Emily because a Van Buren win would vindicate Jackson’s own presidency. Meacham rationalizes “to him the country was family too” (Meacham, p. 328). It would be more accurate describe a man who would step over the corpses of his loved ones to attain political goals, with a gentle reference to his ambition and self-involvement.

Fortunately, on important matters of Jacksonian racism and politics, Meacham is clear-sighted. Jackson owned 150 slaves (Meacham, p. 303). In office, “he denounced abolitionists’ ‘inflammatory appeals’” and “worried that anti-slavery forces were about to destroy the country” during his efforts to repress distribution of their pamphlets in the South (Meacham, p. 322). While there is always a danger that one may judge a past generation employing current values, it is not an issue in cases where a significant enlightened opposition existed. It would be arrogant to laugh at Ptolemy for believing that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Few thought differently. But during Jackson’s time, ideas repudiating both censorship and slavery were prominent. In this context, Meacham’s critique that “Jackson, who believed in the virtues of democracy and individual liberties so clearly and so forcefully for whites, was blinded by the prejudices of his age” is a fully appropriate one (Meacham, p. 303).

In addition, throughout the biography, Meacham critically examines the President’s unjust “Indian Removal” policy which forcibly relocated Native Americans and resulted in so many deaths. The author’s view is that Jackson’s position “was an exaggerated example of the prevailing white view, favoring removal at nearly any cost…he was on the extreme edge of the mainstream” (Meacham, p. 96). While “there was a significant anti-removal campaign across the country,” Jackson remained untouched by it. “There is nothing redemptive about Jackson’s Indian policy” (Meacham, p. 7).

American Lion is a conflicting mix of invented dramatic feeling and well-researched facts about the Jackson presidency. Meacham does tell a colorful “story,” with all the positive and negative permutations of that word. The writing is exciting, but may distract with sensational content. Sentences like “To rule, one had to survive, and to survive one had to fight” (Meacham, p. 7), are emotive but meaningless. Presidents don’t rule. In the context of a presidency, the word fight is a purple metaphor. Survival is not a real concern. A student of history will be required to dodge some melodrama, but this will not affect comprehension of the facts. Those who feel that excessive passages of dramatic prose are a waste of reading time will fare better with an academic biography of the seventh president.

Meacham, Jon. American Lion. Andrew Jackson in the White House. New York: Random House, 2008.

Police Violence Today. History Lessons Ignored. Inspired by Stefan Aust's Baader-Meinhof.

It is depressing to watch history repeat itself: police killing people, police acquitted or never tried for those crimes, individuals within a movement frustrated by a lack of democratic process becoming more extreme. Parallels in history are all too apparent.

On June 2, 1967 students in West Berlin were protesting the reception of the Shah of Iran by their government. Some protesters threw paint balloons which fell far short of the Shah’s motorcade; but this was as disorderly as the crowd became. After the Shah had entered the Berlin Opera House, the protesters were dispersing.

“Then the police attacked, wielding their truncheons without giving the usual warning first…demonstrators collapsed, covered with blood…Detective Sergeant Karl-Heinz Kurras...of the Political Police…thought he spotted a ringleader…the police gave chase, reached him and showered blows on him. The student hung limp in their arms and slumped slowly to the ground. Karl-Heinz Kurras was among those on the spot at this moment, holding his 7.65-mm pistol with the safety catch off. The muzzle was less than half a metre away from the demonstrator’s head, or that was how it appeared to eye-witnesses. Suddenly a shot rang out. The bullet hit the man above the right ear, entered his brain and smashed the cranium…The dead man was Benno Ohnesorg, twenty-six years old, studying Romance languages and literature, a pacifist” (Aust, pp. 26-27).

Kurras was shortly acquitted in two trials and subsequently promoted. “In January 2012, an investigation carried out by federal prosecutors and Der Spiegel magazine ruled that the shooting of Ohnesorg was not in self-defence and was certainly premeditated” (Wikipedia/Der Spiegel citation below). Police violence against protesters, check. Police murder, check. Police acquittal, check.

The result of these murders, then as now, was increased radicalism and the perception that the offending officers represented a Police State rather than a Democratic Republic. On the same night of the police riot and Ohnesorg’s assassination, demonstrators met at the Berlin SDS centre. “A slim young woman with long blonde hair was weeping uncontrollably, crying, ‘This fascist state means to kill us all. We must organize resistance. Violence is the only way to answer violence” (Aust, p. 27). This once innocent, young woman was Gudrun Ensslin; a future leader in the Baader-Meinhof Group who was to commit deadly acts of terrorism in the coming years. Those who feel that this example applies only to Germany need only look to the Police Riot of the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention and the rise of the Weather Underground for comparisons.

All parties must take responsibility: police and demonstrators; past and present. Yes, the individuals of the Baader-Meinhof Group were personally responsible for becoming terrorists; for carrying-out extreme measures in response to extreme repression. Many of their fellow students continued to protest against the Shah or the Vietnam War without resorting to violence. But we must recognize that without police violence, it is unlikely that these students would have turned to hatred, thought of the state as fascistic and assumed violent tactics.

In Brooklyn, a disturbed Ismaaiyl Brinsley has already murdered NYPD officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, claiming it as revenge for the police murders of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. This will not be the last extremist response. Demonstrators, motivated by Ferguson and other killings of non-white minorities, see that they are not being heard and are responding with increasingly radical acts. One, much milder but telling, example is the highway blockage of I-93 leading into Boston. It was peaceful, but was the impotent act of a frustrated protest movement that only served to anger commuters. No official response assuring justice for murdered African American males has resulted from this protest. As protesters continue to be unheard and injustice persists, their actions will become increasingly angry.

Authorities are acquitting murderers. More minority males are being murdered. There is a perception that the police receive special treatment when on trial for murder. The democratic process appears compromised. People see this across a political spectrum from uninvolved citizens to the demonstrators themselves. It is too reminiscent of the past.

The elected officials must now intervene, to both show the protesters (and the rest of us) that there is justice. They must enact that justice, before things go regrettably further. As exhibited by the example of western democracies during the late 1960s, failure to act will result in escalating discord. We elect the representatives of civic and national government. They hold the leash by which the police are restrained. If they do not act to restrain police violence and bring murdering officers to justice, they must be replaced. This is how a democratic republic works. Let us not repeat the errors of the 1960s.

Aust, Stefan. Baader-Meinhof. The Inside Story of the Red Army Faction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Wikipedia:  "Police Covered Up Truth Behind Infamous Student Shooting". SPIEGEL ONLINE international. 2012-01-23. Retrieved 2012-02-25.

Prague in Black and Gold by Peter Demetz

“I wish to sketch a few selected chapters of a paradoxical history in which the golden hues of proud power and creative glory, of emperors, artists and scholars, and restive people, are not untouched with the black of suffering and the victims’ silence” (Demetz, p. xii).

Above is the key sentence in Peter Demetz’s preface to Prague in Black and Gold, which explains both the title and his approach to the city’s history. Prague was a distinctly multi-ethnic mix. Though it was divided largely between Czech and German populations, Jews comprised a significant minority (peaking at 25% of the citizenry in 1705), followed by a small but prominent population of Italians.

As a professor of  Literature at Yale and former resident of Prague, Demetz is true to his word, offering “sketches” rather than extensive, methodical chronology. After a tedious but foundation-setting first chapter on the origins of the city, the author presents some colorful depictions. King Otakar, Emperor Charles IV, Jan Hus, Rudolph II, Mozart and T.G. Masaryk, are all presented in individual chapters where they overlay, influence and are influenced by a changing cultural variety residents. Prague in Black and Gold is a series of moments set in historical order. Demetz will rush through 150 years within two pages, then will lovingly describe an episode or individual for most of a chapter. The author focuses on what he thinks is significant or what interests him personally. The Polish Kings, who ruled Prague from 1471 to 1526, get a few scattered sentences over two pages, while Mozart (who only visited Prague four times) rates a chapter.

Demetz writes what he likes, adding a great number of personal impressions to his history. But what he writes is insightful and not infrequently lyrical. There is little place for the personal among our modern, clinical, more scientific schools of history. Undeniably, an impersonal, empirical approach is most often going to yield a less prejudiced, factual representation of events. But Demetz’s highly individualistic account presents an astute angle that teaches much and is rarely boring.

One area where it would be helpful for Demetz to learn from more evidenced-based historians concerns documentation. There is a fine, chapter by chapter bibliography, but no footnotes or endnotes. With such undisciplined scholarship, a good writer can carelessly and convincingly fabricate. Notes are both evidence and markers. They permit information to be verified and keep a writer from straying too far from fact. Historians who do not supply evidence and make their books a collection of impressions or free-hand writing, are merely storytellers. For example, the execution of Jan Hus is presented as a calm, poetic and dignified end to a man of great integrity. After the wood around his stake was lit, the author writes that Hus simply “began to sing aloud.” Then, “when the flames blew in his face, he only prayed silently and after a while died” (Demetz, p. 145). It is hard to imagine that any human being could maintain such serene piety, without crying-out in anguish, while the flesh was being melted from his bones. Maybe Hus was capable of displaying a behavior different from the rest of humanity; but there is no way for us to know since the event is presented without citation.

Prague in Black and Gold is a pensive, melancholy rumination by a capable writer. Demetz feels deeply and struggles concerning his subject. Much of his conflicted perspective is rooted in his own history there: his Jewish mother deported to her death by the Nazis; his life interrupted by totalitarian Communist take-over and personal exile. The “paradoxical history” of creative “golden hues” and “black suffering” in Prague is also that of the author. While the personal invades and skews the historical picture, it presents a unique and often perspicacious view that only someone who has lived the black and gold can write.

Demetz, Peter. Prague in Black and Gold. New York: Hill and Wang, 1997.

Gay New York. Gender, Urban Culture and the making of the Gay Male World 1890 - 1940 by George Chauncey

George Chauncey presents a vivid portrait of New York gay male culture in the years between 1890 and 1940. It is a rich, highly documented study that relies on evidence ranging from interviews and biographical accounts by gay men, to the less friendly testimony of police spies and citizen vigilantes attempting to contain this milieu. The result is a panorama of gay neighborhoods and meeting places that thrived during this period.

The book begins with scenes of an active 1890s “subculture of the flamboyantly effeminate ‘fairies’…who gathered at Paresis Hall and other Bowery resorts.” Many of these men are described as prostitutes directly employed by the owners, or passively encouraged because they enticed customers. While Chauncey is quick to point-out that this “was not the only gay subculture in the city,” it does begin the book on a sensationalist note (Chauncey, p. 34). It might have been more useful to progress from interviews and biographies showing private gay home life, relationships and friendships, which would have illustrated the solid foundation of gay community, but the beginning would have been less exciting.

From this unfortunate start, Chauncey progresses improvingly by depicting the attitudes of men who defined themselves positively as “queers” and “fairies.” This counters the myth that all gay men at the time had internalized the dominant culture’s negative image of them. Self-esteem existed prior to the activism of our current period. The book progresses from the Gay Nineties through the 1930s, when a number of proudly gay entertainers headlined Greenwich Village and Harlem night spots widely attended by the straight community. Chauncey does not pretend that the 1890s through the 1930s were free of harassment and prejudice. He spends a great deal of time highlighting assaults upon the gay male community during this period. But one cannot deny the evidence of a thriving public and private gay culture before World War Two.

While the elaboration of life from home to street is fascinating and opens the reader to a world presumed invisible if non-existent, Chauncey is a historian with a wider purpose. A common assumption is that US gay culture progressed, in a linear trajectory, from concealment to free expression; from oppression to acceptance. “The Whiggish notion that change is always ‘progressive’ and that gay history in particular consists of a steady movement toward freedom continues to have appeal” to the LGBT community and its optimistic allies (Chauncey, p. 9). Chauncey offers evidence that gay male culture was more visible, tolerated and permeable to outsiders between 1890 and 1930 than it was between 1945 and 1960. He claims that a “post-war reaction has tended to blind us to the relative tolerance of the pre-war years” (Chauncey, p. 9). Our lack of knowledge about this early 20^th Century flourishing oasis is largely due to the success of post-war repression.

Despite the eye-opening, socially progressive purpose of the author’s work, his relative exclusion of lesbians will rankle with some readers. Chauncey self-consciously explains that “the book focuses on men because the differences between gay male and lesbian history and the complexity of each made it seem virtually impossible to write a book about both that did justice to each” (Chauncey, p. 27). This justification rings a bit hollow, since lesbians and gay men lived in the same neighborhoods and frequented many of the same social spaces.

Chauncey should be congratulated on his extensive coverage of African American life. Unlike his justification for excluding lesbians, Chauncey does not argue that the differences between Caucasian and African American history “made it seem virtually impossible to write a book about both.” While many white gay clubs excluded African American men, Harlem of the early 20^th Century has a bountiful history of gay neighborhood cohesion, clubs and drag balls, which the author portrays in enthusiastic detail.

Gay New York may have its flaws and blind spots, but it is a significant adjunct to LGBT history. The myths of invisibility, isolation and self-abnegation are aptly countered by its testimony. It depicts a strong, vibrant and cohesive community that thrived for a period before being driven underground by prejudice. While the author’s coverage of post-war suppression is difficult to read, it is an important episode to face. The chronology from a more open and tolerated gay culture to one that was repressed, warns us that the forces of intolerance are persistent. We must be vigilant in order to retain recent LGBT gains.

Chauncey, George. Gay New York. Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940. New York: Basic Books, 1994.

For review of a LGBT book on anarchist support for LGBT rights during this time in US history, see:
http://greatnonfictionbooks.blogspot.com/2014/01/free-comrades-anarchism-and.html