Culture is Politics

"Culture is politics."

So exclaims Frank Rich in his essay today on the Sarah Palin phenomenon. Whatever your political lean, there can be no doubt that Palin's rise stems from her connection to cultural issues, such as abortion and religion, and her seemingly effortless ability to resonate with people who are fearful of change. It's an apocalyptic message, repeated in an equally populist way by Glenn Beck, that America, and life as we know it, is about to end if leftist and progressive ideas and agendas are allowed to thrive.

Suddenly, with the election of our nation's first African-American President, these fears have bubbled to the surface, with teabagging masses descending upon Washington DC like the torch-wielding mobs in "Frankenstein", trying to kill what they simply do not understand. It's totally irrational, but people who are afraid do not take time to seek out the facts, they only know what they feel, and voices like Palin and Beck, with their incessant demonization-du-jour, tap into that raw, visceral emotion.

Matt Taibbi, in a must-read column, hits the nail on the head.

At the end of this decade what we call “politics” has devolved into a kind of ongoing, brainless soap opera about dueling cultural resentments and the really cool thing about it, if you’re a TV news producer or a talk radio host, is that you can build the next day’s news cycle meme around pretty much anything at all, no matter how irrelevant — like who’s wearing a flag lapel pin and who isn’t, who spent $150K worth of campaign funds on clothes and who didn’t, who wore a t-shirt calling someone a cunt and who didn’t, and who put a picture of a former Vice Presidential candidate in jogging shorts on his magazine cover (and who didn’t).

It doesn’t matter what the argument is about. What’s important is that once the argument starts, the two sides will automatically coalesce around the various instant-cocoa talking points and scream at each other until they’re blue in the face, or until the next argument starts.

A month ago I wrote about AANR's director Erich Schuttauf and his public comments about two cultural issues - the man arrested in Virginia for being nude in his own home, and the parents in Arizona who were arrested for taking nude photos of their children. Schuttauf got caught up in the noise on these issues, the 24 hour news spin, and made them official AANR issues, when in fact they were of marginal passing interest, fodder for blogs and forums, and not worthy of official comment or statement from nudist organizations. As I predicted, both of these stories dropped off the radar just as quickly as they appeared.

The challenge for nudists and naturists today is to separate the real issues out of the incessant noise of cultural argument, and to formulate a plan for future acceptance of nude recreation in society.

The recent battle over San Onofre Beach illustrates how the cultural divide is threatening nude sunbathing. Without rehashing the entire case, suffice it to say that California Parks officials banned nudity at San Onofre more on cultural reasons than practical. As the Naturist Action Committee reported on 5/30/08: "It is their (Parks Department officials) firm belief that the only way to rid the park of the criminals in the parking lot, on the Marine Base and the occasional miscreant on our beach is to remove the most supportive and positive influence there, the honest naturists at Trail 6."

This is a clear case of public officials taking on a "cultural enemy" rather than deal with the real issue at hand, both as a matter of expediency and to create the illusion that they were on top of the issue. Allen Baylis outlines the irrationality behind the San Onofre decision in his "Fact or Fiction" essay.

As I've noted before, I supported the NAC's lawsuit at San Onofre, even though the chances for success were slim. It was important for nudists and naturists to band together and fight, even for a lost cause, in order to bring attention to the issue, and gather support. When AANR chose not to support the NAC and pursue a course of appeasement and negotiation, they effectively threw San Onofre Beach under the bus, and revealed nudists and naturists to be a divided and weakened force.

In this particular battle in the culture wars, the NAC decided to fight the real battle, while AANR decided to run with what Taibbi refers to as a "brainless soap opera", blaming the NAC, claiming "victory" through appeasement, and scoring political points at the expense of a real loss for nude recreation.

It's truly shameful, especially from an organization that calls itself "the credible voice of reason for nude recreation." Even the use of such a slogan is divisive, inferring that The Naturist Society or other organizations have no credibility. It's just like Fox News when it refers to itself as "fair and balanced."

On the other hand, TNS proclaims as part of its mission statement: "The Naturist Society believes the interests of naturists are advanced through education and community outreach. TNS recognizes it is part of a larger community and welcomes the challenge of spreading the naturist and nudist message."

Taibbi goes on to say:

Complaining about the assholes we interact with on a daily basis is the #1 eternal pastime of the human race. We all do it, and we get to do it every day, because the world is full of assholes...and when we get home from work, this is usually what our loved ones hear about for at least the first hour or so.

Not health care, not financial regulatory reform, not Iraq or Afghanistan, but — assholes.

AANR and the NAC have been engaging in the assholes debate for the last year and a half. AANR blames the NAC for endangering nudity on all California state beaches, and the NAC blames AANR for giving Parks officials the impression that San Onofre was expendable. Plenty of assholes to blame on this one.

The blame game has reached epic proportions in today's culture. Don't like health care reform? Blame Obama, blame Pelosi, blame Reid. Don't like the lack of health care reform? Blame Boehner, blame Bush, blame all the obstructionist Republicans.

Sarah Palin fits perfectly into this new meme, never taking responsibility for her own failures, but rather blaming all of the assholes in her life, like Katie Couric, Steve Schmidt, Newsweek, or any other person or entity which dares to stand in the way of her ordained mission to save America. She is the self-proclaimed "credible voice" of the people.

The problem with all of this brainless cultural chatter is that it accomplishes nothing. We leap from one argument to the next without ever solving real problems. Issues like health insurance reform, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the current economic crisis should not be fodder for petty political posturing, but rather battles that need to be fought together as the common interests of all the American people. Life and death issues should not be debated "Hardball" style day in and day out - there has to come a time when doing the right thing trumps doing the political thing.

Same with San Onofre. The time has come for the asshole arguments to cease. I don't give a damn who is the "credible" voice on the public beaches issue, I just want results.

There's a scene in the Pixar movie "Up" where a talking dog is engaged in conversation when he suddenly turns his head and exclaims "Squirrel!". This sudden animated canine distraction says more about our culture as Americans than it does about the dog. In the midst of world-shattering crises, we are all to willing to focus our attention on the inane, such as Balloon Boy, Jon and Kate, and the Thrilla from Wasilla who winks and says "You Betcha" as part of her political platform.

Mixing culture with politics not only further divides people, it over-simplifies issues into black and white, completely erasing the gray. Nuance and subtelty are the backbones of any meaningful debate, and the essence of problem solving, so when we reduce these complex matters into stick figure cartoons, we render ourselves ineffective and irrelevant. As Matt Taibbi says, we are in danger of waging a "virtually endless war over nonsense."

Nudists and naturists need to realize than in a culturally explosive atmosphere, the nude lifestyle loses. We have practically no political power, and even less when divided into opposing camps. We are also in the odd position where non-sexual social nudity is taboo for most of mainstream America, and too tame for the swinger and porn culture which is a thriving sub-sector taking over traditional nudist venues.

We are literally caught in the middle.

So what is the prescription for nudists in dealing with this society where culture and politics are one and the same?

The floor is open for intelligent debate.