Love how you brought this full circle at the end. I'll put a James Baldwin quote down below from his "Notes of a Native Son," essay, which very much colors a lot of the "identity philosophy" he engages with from then onwards. It seems to me we're experiencing the logical result of digital avatar-ification of the Self, and the resulting narcissism that comes with the politics of extreme individualism. Much of what we're' marketed these days is to pigeonhole much of our own personal sense of identity into smaller and smaller categories in the name of expansiveness. It's a tough sell. I've been thinking--and probably more importantly, *feeling*--a lot about the moralism of identity, and I keep thinking about the James Baldwin quote down below. There's something there. Thanks for your essay.
“It was necessary to hold on to the things that mattered. The dead man mattered, the new life mattered; blackness and whiteness did not matter; to believe that they did was to acquiesece in one’s own destruction. Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated and this was an immutable law.” Notes of a Native Son
I’m similarly inclined to these intellectual friend circles. Keats Shelley Wollstonecraft. The group around Diego Rivera in the 20s. There was a Nazi sympathizer crew around the British monarchy which was pretty ripe.
The one I know most about is the American Transcendentalists centered in Cambridge Mass in the 18th c. : Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller (fascinating woman) and scads Alcotts and Channings’ etc. Of which I am a lineage holder of sorts. Distinctly Romantic group.
in this mobile age there are always complications of the diaspora. In my case my mostly DAR-worthy DNA intersected with Jewishness; where lineage holding is a combo platter of inheritance and education. If you are “ half” Jewish like me, which half is often pertinent but remains impertinent to ask after. Because in my case the half was my father - the wrong half for those keeping score at home - I tend to refer to myself as Jew-ish so as not to be regarded self denying. My maiden and then married names were both singularly and unambiguously Jewish. Yet I knew nothing. I’m sure this a lament shared between denizens of various borderlands and bardo regions: enforced forgetting. I was denied a Jewish education under the regime of a childhood household devoted to militant atheism.
My children were not spared. They are full fledged and certified Jews - (albeit Reform and inherently skeptical.)
My rationale was that antisemitism was coming back because antisemitism is always coming back. If they were going to be identified as Jews well they darn well better be equipped as Jews. Right?
Or, as I explained to my horrified “religion-is -the-Opiate-of-the-Masses” mother “Yes, but at least they will have something to rebel against!”
Still Im never Jewish enough. (I ask sincerely -Is anyone?)
Because of my Jewish inadequacies and despite as thoroughgoing a Jewish education as it’s possible to get in the US my daughter had to convert to Judaism. My son, (incidentally named for old Ralph Waldo) got his bona fides at a lively event where he was deprived of the tip of his penis by an extremely old man I didn’t know and thus was formally conscripted into the Book of Life. However my daughter, having nothing to snip, had to get dunked in a pool by a holocaust survivor the day before her Bat Mitzvah while 3 rabbis of 3 different orders listened behind a door.
Yes there are many tribal oddities I had to learn as an adult that I still have a hard time digesting.
Oh I think I read Chas Fort as a kid. (Wow that’s a deep cut. I don’t think I’ve thought him since adolescence. Anyway I’ll have to check it again on the strength of your recommendation. )
Yes, the origins of modern anxiety “was I supposed to be at Deux Maggots this WHOLE TIME...dammit!”
Alas, according to feminist history there were an awful lot of women in convents and private parlors having extremely interesting thoughts in the prior 500 years or so, generally lost to God and other silences.
I’m currently reading Fuller’s memoirs. It seems we are often in the same patch
Love how you brought this full circle at the end. I'll put a James Baldwin quote down below from his "Notes of a Native Son," essay, which very much colors a lot of the "identity philosophy" he engages with from then onwards. It seems to me we're experiencing the logical result of digital avatar-ification of the Self, and the resulting narcissism that comes with the politics of extreme individualism. Much of what we're' marketed these days is to pigeonhole much of our own personal sense of identity into smaller and smaller categories in the name of expansiveness. It's a tough sell. I've been thinking--and probably more importantly, *feeling*--a lot about the moralism of identity, and I keep thinking about the James Baldwin quote down below. There's something there. Thanks for your essay.
“It was necessary to hold on to the things that mattered. The dead man mattered, the new life mattered; blackness and whiteness did not matter; to believe that they did was to acquiesece in one’s own destruction. Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated and this was an immutable law.” Notes of a Native Son
All very interesting. Had to look up several words, but, this is a good thing.
I’m similarly inclined to these intellectual friend circles. Keats Shelley Wollstonecraft. The group around Diego Rivera in the 20s. There was a Nazi sympathizer crew around the British monarchy which was pretty ripe.
The one I know most about is the American Transcendentalists centered in Cambridge Mass in the 18th c. : Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller (fascinating woman) and scads Alcotts and Channings’ etc. Of which I am a lineage holder of sorts. Distinctly Romantic group.
in this mobile age there are always complications of the diaspora. In my case my mostly DAR-worthy DNA intersected with Jewishness; where lineage holding is a combo platter of inheritance and education. If you are “ half” Jewish like me, which half is often pertinent but remains impertinent to ask after. Because in my case the half was my father - the wrong half for those keeping score at home - I tend to refer to myself as Jew-ish so as not to be regarded self denying. My maiden and then married names were both singularly and unambiguously Jewish. Yet I knew nothing. I’m sure this a lament shared between denizens of various borderlands and bardo regions: enforced forgetting. I was denied a Jewish education under the regime of a childhood household devoted to militant atheism.
My children were not spared. They are full fledged and certified Jews - (albeit Reform and inherently skeptical.)
My rationale was that antisemitism was coming back because antisemitism is always coming back. If they were going to be identified as Jews well they darn well better be equipped as Jews. Right?
Or, as I explained to my horrified “religion-is -the-Opiate-of-the-Masses” mother “Yes, but at least they will have something to rebel against!”
Still Im never Jewish enough. (I ask sincerely -Is anyone?)
Because of my Jewish inadequacies and despite as thoroughgoing a Jewish education as it’s possible to get in the US my daughter had to convert to Judaism. My son, (incidentally named for old Ralph Waldo) got his bona fides at a lively event where he was deprived of the tip of his penis by an extremely old man I didn’t know and thus was formally conscripted into the Book of Life. However my daughter, having nothing to snip, had to get dunked in a pool by a holocaust survivor the day before her Bat Mitzvah while 3 rabbis of 3 different orders listened behind a door.
Yes there are many tribal oddities I had to learn as an adult that I still have a hard time digesting.
As usual, I’ve gone too long. Thanks for it all.
Oh I think I read Chas Fort as a kid. (Wow that’s a deep cut. I don’t think I’ve thought him since adolescence. Anyway I’ll have to check it again on the strength of your recommendation. )
Yes, the origins of modern anxiety “was I supposed to be at Deux Maggots this WHOLE TIME...dammit!”
Alas, according to feminist history there were an awful lot of women in convents and private parlors having extremely interesting thoughts in the prior 500 years or so, generally lost to God and other silences.
I’m currently reading Fuller’s memoirs. It seems we are often in the same patch