#it's like those historical fiction things you see where the Obvious 21st Century Person stares at the camera to roll their eyes at racism

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

Labor history is precisely the environment in which I first noticed this kind of thing, I had a graduate reading seminar in left-wing radicalism when I was doing my first Master's degree and seemingly every book had this wild speculative quality. It's been a while since I was really in the weeds of it all but one of the main works that stands out to me is Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker's the Many-Headed Hydra which tries to wrap English labor movements with abolitionism as if it were all one self-consciously unified struggle which I just do not think even their own analysis supports

The thing I just read was in a collection responding to the 1619 Project and trying to situate American slavery in a hemispheric/Atlantic context and this guy was writing about three different models of colonization in early Virginia and how there was this small band of Puritan settlers in the 1620s who opposed arbitrary power and so maybe they would have been antislavery in the way that the Puritans of Massachusetts were antislavery, at least in the sense that they wouldn't rely so heavily on slavery, but the reason that Virginians relied so heavily on slavery is that the main cash crop that they adopted was tobacco and it was the only thing they could really grow for a profit in that climate and they used slaves to grow it because that was the only way to turn a profit doing it so really the mass adoption of slavery has less to do with the religious conviction of settlers in a given area and more to do with the climate of the area and the kind of agricultural regime the climate supported and also the general assumption of the entire colonizing venture which was in the main an effort to generate profit; and then he argues the vision of labor exploitation that dominated in Virginia arose during the English Civil Wars as a result of that particular group's ability to mobilize and capture the legislature but that is the group that had all the money so of course they're the ones who managed to consolidate as happens constantly in human history. We don't even have evidence by his own admission that this Puritan group would have been any softer on slavery, he just thinks that in their silence and the analogy of Massachusetts that maybe they would have been antislavery. And then he doesn't even engage with the fact that these Puritans were themselves a tiny minority. "If they had had their way then Virginian history could have been totally different" OK but in what way was that ever going to happen? Show me the moves by which this incredibly unpopular idealistic religious movement expands enough to take power. They just didn't have the numbers. How would they ever have gotten them??

In order to make a compelling case for how Virginia could have developed otherwise in a broader colonial world in which all European colonies including the Puritan colonies in the Northeast were heavily implicated in slavery and the slave trade you need to demonstrate a compelling example of European colonization that does not rely overwhelmingly on the extraction of profit from the New World and/or that is not dictated by the environmental possibilities of the area settled. I don't mean to say that history is entirely deterministic but events tend to follow a logic and an English colony being antislavery would radically differ from the model of almost every other colonization venture. Where are the turning points? When could Virginia have rejected slavery and why would they have done it? What would they have done otherwise?

The real problem is that most Leftist scholarship is not interested in the world as it is, but the world as it should be, and they need to make these incredibly strained arguments for how history could have gone otherwise specifically to plant the idea that life could be different now but I just don't find it compelling in almost any instance, precisely because it is based on imaginative and speculative reading in defiance of events as they occurred, and wishful projection on silences in the written record.

Leftist historians are always like "there's nothing pre-ordained about history look at how rich with possibilities everything is" before admitting that almost all their alternative visions are based on speculative reading of vanishingly thin source bases and then showing how the rich people won yet again

[annetteblog]

I got a very long ask and wrote even longer reply, and now Tumblr for some reason doesn't want to publish it through asks. So I'm making a separate post, because what else can I do? 😀 I hope Anon wouldn't mind

Hi!

Thank you for such a long ask! I really enjoy replying those, although it may take some time to actually write whatever I have on my mind 🙂 However, I feel like for every question that you posed, it's possible to write its own big reply or even an essay, so this piece of mine probably won’t give them justice (but I’ll try my best.)

As usual, one big IMO.

1) Ethics, “gueer coding” and discussions

I believe I’ve already partly touched this subject here. Shortly, I think that everything the boys did (and still do) had its own purpose. They decided to put these "undertones" (or whatever one may call them) in their art. They made some statements with a very small room for interpretation. And it didn't happen once or twice. More like, it's been a consistent behaviour throughout years.

I don't buy this excuse some fans write - "oh, he just didn't know about this/didn't understand how it looked like/didn't..." So apparently, JK wasn't able to figure out shit about Troye, didn't give a damn about his GCF, didn't think how his tattoo looked like; JM didn't realize to what conclusions could lead his quite bold words about 4am or waking up and seeing JK; both of them didn't have second thoughts about the Black Swan dance; Bang PD is just a CEO who pays zero attention to BTS in general and KM actions in particular (which sometimes actually backlash, e.g. that stop gay fanservice thing after the Seoul concerts), because he clearly just doesn't care AT ALL; whatever PR service they have in BH is just asleep all the time... Etc etc etc, you got the idea

Well, if one wants to perceive JM, JK and BigHit as a group of complete morons with no brains, this "oh, they just didn't know" explanation may work. But if all of them were idiots, how would BTS become the biggest group on a planet? They are smart enough, deal with this.

And YET. KM still do what they do. It's their choice, so apparently they have their motives. You wrote it yourself too - "Jikook and BH put out all that stuff for a reason."

Keeping this in mind, I truly think it's fair to discuss queer undertones or KM's bond. It's meant to be discussed and speculated. They made it public, and they continue to make it public (and quite obvious, to be honest). Why? Well, I guess they want us to speculate.

From here comes the second point

2) Art and its interpretations

In general, I believe that any good art should allow various interpretations. That's what a good piece of art is supposed to do - provoke a thought. As well as it's quite customary to analyze and (sometimes) overanalyze art. Thousands of universities worldwide have programs which are focused on fine art, literature, theater, music, film, etc.

And why is it okay to write about Avengers or Madonna or whatever weird art you're able to find in the closest Contemporary museum (like a banana taped to a wall), but not okay to interpret BTS' songs and/or performances? Again, I strongly believe that art is meant to be discussed. Especially as cool as theirs 🙂

Actually, some popular fandom theories turned out to be true here. Since Spring Day release on Feb 2017, fans speculated about its connection to the Sewol ferry tragedy based on the song's lyrics, MV and choreo. We got this confirmation like when, December 2020? But before it was also just an interpretation.

Coming back to KM. Combining these with the idea that JM/JK/BH clearly know what they're doing and how it may look like, I don't see a problem in having various interpretation of their art. Including queer ones.

3) Escapism

Isn't all art targeted to escaping in a sense? We want to take a break from reality and/or mundane life or just gain some new experience. In this sense what's the radical difference between staring at pictures or sculptures in a museum, watching a movie, reading a book or scrolling through Tumblr reading BTS/KM centric posts? All of these are means to escape and entertain ourselves.

As for this "if they are a queer couple, is it okay to derive pleasure and 'what a beautiful love story' feelings from two members of systematically oppressed minority?" - and you would prefer doing what - ignoring them? pretending that they don't exist? 🙃 In case if they are a queer couple, I guess showing support and benevolence is even more important. Exactly because, as you mentioned, they are a part of the oppressed minority. And the hatred is/would be definitely in place.

4) Fanfiction

Oh my, what a controversial theme these days.

Firstly, some forget it was not invented in the 21st century. Even slash fanfiction (cough Star cough Trek). As for incorporating real people, it's been a part of literature for like what.. always? There are millions of different writings about emperors, nobles, military figures, lives of saints, etc. And it's not like personal opinion of people in question bothered those, who write or wrote about them. I clearly remember a scene in Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, where Alexander I [Russian emperor 1801-25] after losing a battle against Napoleon, hits a birch tree with his sword while crying hard and just being kinda hysterical. Would real Alexander be satisfied with such image if he read the book? Idk 😄

About having "the right to comment on such [different from your own] experience". I suppose, if authors wrote only about what they had experienced, our literature would be 95% poorer than it is. How can one write books in historic settings if they didn't live there? How do books about future and space travel exist, if we live in 2021? Is it needed to be a part of mafia to write about mafia? What about other cultures? Should an American author write only about American people and American lifestyle or it's fine to have characters from other countries?

Writing is not about experiencing something and then making a fanfic or a book, it's more about research and compassion. If you have reliable info on your theme and are able to look at the world using different lenses, why not?

I don't perceive fanfiction as a worldwide evil. Sure, there are creepy examples as well as authors, who write fetishizing weird shit. But it doesn't mean that all fanfiction=bad and all slash fanfiction=objectification of male homosexuality. Fanfiction is just one form of fiction, it can be good or bad based on how it's written. But the label itself doesn't define anything, as well as reading it should not be a reason to accusations.

5) Jikook, shipping and politics

I'm among those, who perceive pretty much everything as a part of politics. We all exist within some political conventions and have certain political laws over our heads. And yes, it includes art. Even if an artist says something like "oh, I decided to stay away from politics, my work is beyond it". The decision to stay away from politics is also political, because apparently there was something within the political structure what made this artist say that and forced them to make this distinction between them and some institutional conventions.

And that makes me believe that shipping/supporting KM is also political. But I don't think it's necessarily bad? Basically, you decided to support potentially queer people from a country, which doesn't really approve LGBTQ+. It puts you in the opposition towards a particular government. You made a choice. You could google some SK stuff, read all that you mentioned in the beginning of your ask, and say something like "oh, that's not okay there? well, fair enough, I guess their government knows better"🤠 and forget that this KM thing even exists. But apparently you didn't

Imo, is it politics? Yes

Is it bad that it's politics? Well, no? 🙃

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P.S. I hope I was clear enough with my ideas. Thank you again for the thought provoking ask, and I hope I'll hear from you again 🙂

And honestly, I don't think that you're problematic in any way :)