Common Sense	Common Sense Archive

The radio woke me up this morning. The first news piece I heard was this: the Southern Baptist Convention is holding its annual confab in Salt Lake City. That's in Utah. It's a free country; go where you want. SLC happens to be the home of the Mormons, and the So. Baptists, it turns out do not believe that the LDSes are True Christians. So, the reporter interviewed some of the Baptists, who were eager to bring the Mormons to the true way. And then the Mormons were interviewed, hoping they could explain the mysteries of the Book of Mormon to those who believe the Bible is "complete." (The poet W. H. Auden, a sincere Anglican, once said: "A poem is never finished"-- and, alas, too few religions are!) Soon the So. Baptists and the Mormons will have a go at each other.

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Guess which country? This must be-- AmeriKKKa!

Here's a riff on Wystan Auden. Did you know that after Hannah Arendt's husband (Heinrich Blucher) died (Nov. 1970), Wystan showed up at her Manhattan digs? Wystan was a bit tipsy and he implored Hannah, to whom he had always been devoted, to please marry him. Arendt listened to his plea for matrimony and then showed him the door. (Arendt wrote Mary McCarthy about the idea of marrying Auden: "It would be worse than suicide!") Auden had already been, legally, married to Erica Mann, Thomas's dotter, and in the gay sense to Chester Kallman. Hannah, having had two husbands, thought that quite enough. But poor Wystan! He didn't much like being queer. He wanted so much to be normal, except, of course, on those occasions when he didn't. His is in many ways a sad signature in the book of letters; in the end, when it really matters-- anyone can be daring and even foolish when young-- he went into the bosom of Anglicanism-- the most tepid and wrung-out "ism" of his time! Where was his compass?

I once got a letter from my friend Brigid Brophy, the late Anglo-Irish writer. She had just come back from a trip to Moscow with her husband, Sir Michael Levey, and her lover, Maureen Duffy. In her letter, she noted, about her trip: "Swell was it to be in a country without advertising and without religion." For a visitor like she, I am sure it was, though I do not think Moscow under Brezhnev is the Edenic model. In my country, with its sad history of freedom of religion, I would look to a time without advertising and without religion. When? How?

A young woman came to visit me last week. She was selling advertising on a new gay cyber-space magazine for my city. She had a fancy presentation, a lap-top computer that showed me all the swell things they were offering. I asked what the content of the mag would be. "We have an interview with Matt Damon!" she said. I thought that a bit jejune. "Will you have any articles about politics?" I asked. She looked at me, horrified. "Oh, no, nothing on politics!" She was for me an emblem. When RayGun became PrezNut, I saw a lurch in this culture to the Entertainment-Industrial Complex. Many have since commented on this. In our community, where political action and criticism remain our strengths, I have seen this relentless march by many to get away from what needs to be done into the realm of the established and the harmless, driven, like the rest, to the least offensive, the land of the stupid. For it is truly the mission statement of popular culture to make you stupid and keep you stupid. I know this because I saw the secret Disney/CIA draft memo.

There are those who believe advertising will bring an end to homophobia. There are those who turn to religion. It is my opinion that these activities are the engines that fire animosities between groups. In a culture such as ours, with its strong impulses-- officially-- to egalitarianism, efforts that induce elective differences breed only envy and resentment.

My recommendation? More empathy. The reality? This scenario, which just happened in my town: after the annual AIDS Walk, I asked a friend, who walked, how it went. "It was terrific." He paused and looked pensive. "But there were these religious types along the route. They threw pamphlets at us and screamed at us that we were all going to die and go to hell." Remember Ronnie RayGun's "Morning In Amerika"? They left out the "u." And me too!

Author Profile:  Mitzel
	Mitzel was a founding member of the Fag Rag collective, and has been a Guide columnist since 1986. He manages Calamus Books near Boston's South Station.
	Email:	mitzel@calamusbooks.com
	Website:	calamusbooks.com