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dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram · 1 year

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But there is I think a slightly different question - which is - does Matty Healy share that sort of economically left wing reactionary position? Is that a point of difference between Harry and Matty Healy? /

I'm the anon from this post (I hesitate to call myself TAFS podcast anon because I wouldn't say I know a lot about that podcast, and what I do know of it I find personally distasteful). I think this question is more of what I was trying to get at with my ask, though I do think your separation of worldview vs impact vs politics is a good point. Apologies in advance for a long response.

I don't actually think it's possible to tell very much about celebrities' politics in large part because we see so little of it, and it's very easy to draw incorrect conclusions from what limited data we see. The recent Matty Healy controversy is I think an interesting somewhat aberration, because he speaks about his politics and because, imo, read in the context of TAFS podcast milieu and their beliefs, and taken together with some of the things he says in the New Yorker profile, it does actually suggest a more coherent public political statement. Or at least a toying with a brand of politics, even if briefly or incoherently held, that has significant political impact.

My understanding of this brand of politics is somewhat limited (I'm mainly familiar with it from its adjacency to leftist politics and from alt-right radicalization research, so, admittedly a bit biased), but the point that I think connects to MH's statements is that they make a critique of "wokeness" as a neoliberal preoccupation with syntax and conformity disconnected from actual structures of oppression (which, I'm not altogether unsympathetic toward, but the structures of oppression they do think are real are often purely class/material with very little intersectional analysis), and they seem to find it an effective act of praxis in making that critique to be as deliberately transgressive and provocative as possible. Basically trolling the libs as praxis, with undertones of 'you getting upset about racist statements is actually undermining working class solidarity'. (And like, by the time you get to 'a good way to undermine the neoliberal order is to align with white supremacists who also hate being publicly shamed or deplatformed for being racist', you've so lost me.)

I'm also not a huge The 1975 fan (casual listener at best), so I'm relying somewhat on what I've heard from actual fans, but from what I've read TAFS podcast appearance seems to be an actual aberration and lurch towards this strain of politics that concerned some fans even pre-Taylor Swift blowup, and as you pointed out in your response, it's a very common slide from transgression to reactionary politics. The comments of Matty's that made me inclined to think there was an actual shared politics there were from the New Yorker profile, on TAFS podcast comments: "Had he baited his fans on purpose? 'A little bit,' he said. 'But it doesn’t actually matter. ... You’re either lying that you are hurt, or you’re a bit mental for being hurt. It’s just people going, ‘Oh, there’s a bad thing over there, let me get as close to it as possible so you can see how good I am.’ And I kind of want them to do that, because they’re demonstrating something so base level." That kind of thinking seems very much in line with the 'troll the libs' praxis of TAFS and Red Scare. In my opinion there's a fine, but real, line between 'backlash to these comments is overblown and often performative' and 'so therefore there's no harm in making them, and/or all backlash to these comments is illegitimate' or even 'so therefore it's GOOD to make these kind of comments to show how unserious people are when they get upset'. And I personally find that kind of politics to be actively dangerous, especially as it aligns with figures like Alex Jones and Roger Stone (and by association then white supremacist groups like the Proud Boys), so I think it's a distinction with Harry's brand of politics that's very important, especially in light of the ways that a public profile as high as Harry's or MH's can normalize certain types of politics or speech. Even unintentionally - I don't think Matty needs to necessarily hold these political beliefs deeply or even at all to have the impact of normalizing them.

In case it wasn't clear, I've mostly been talking about Matty Healy's comments on TAFS podcast, not his use of the Nazi salute. I think they've been lumped together in these conversations but I do find them categorically different. My biggest issue with both the criticism of the salute and MH's response is that I think this is just simply a complicated speech issue on which good faith positions can differ and both sides have acted like the opposite position is illegitimate and/or bad faith ('if you do a nazi salute you're always a literal nazi' vs 'in the context of a satirical critique there's no possible actual harm to using a nazi salute and criticism of it is illegitimate'). And, to dip my toes into total speculation for a brief moment, I find it entirely plausible and very much in line with the way that radicalization often occurs that the backlash MH got from the Nazi salute (and other instances mentioned in the New Yorker profile, like his BLM tweets) might have pushed him closer to that economically left wing reactionary position.

Thanks for coming back - I think this is a really interesting conversation and agree with a lot of what you say. But I think it's less likely than you do that Matty Healy is in that economically left wing reactionary position - and I'm going to try and explore why.

I think part of it is that you seem to see a lot of connection between the method (provocation and transgression) and the politics (left wing economically and socially reactionary). I see the connection as being much more conditional - and think that both can and often do exist separate from each other. For example, locally in NZ, the people who most occupy an economically left-wing politically reactionary position - don't use transgression and provocation. They would also be reasonably vigilant on avoiding racist language, for example.

Now my analysis is definitely hampered by lack of context. I don't know a lot about this type of politics. I listened to Matty Healy's episode of TAFS - just for some context. I didn't pick up anything political about it - and I'm not sure that I think that I believe that they have the politics they claim to have. So this is more a discussion of the position as you describe it and how that relates to Matty Healy.

One reason I think it's worth separating the method from the politics - is that I don't think Matty Healy is economically left-wing enough for any trip to a more reactionary politics to follow the path you outline. I think if you look at what we know about his worldview (and I emphasise that this isn't an argument that people have to take his worldview seriously or about either his actions or their impacts - just the relative importance of different issues to him) - he is much closer to being 'the libs' than anything else (there's a reason that I compare his politics to Harry Styles). He's talked much more about queer rights, women's liberation and even anti-racism than he has the redistribution of wealth. I don't think that working class solidarity is particularly important to his worldview. (And just to be clear - I think politics that build the better world must embrace both liberation struggles and working-class solidarity and there's no contradiction between the two. But if I was going to characterise Matty Healy's politics I'd say that a watered down version of liberation struggles loomed larger than a watered down version of working-class solidarity).

To turn to provocation and transgression - I agree with everything you say about their dangers as a political strategy - and that there is no shortage of examples of that (I also think it's worth noting that provocation and transgression has a long history - and while supporting fascism is a thread, it's not the only thread). But the other thing to say is that provocation and transgression have a long non-political tradition as well.

I have to preface my next thought yet again - by saying that this is not an assessment of the impact of Matty Healy's actions, or in any way a comment of what anyone should think or feel about Matty Healy's action. This is just me trying to figure out what's going on for him - and not an argument that what's going on for him has to matter for anyone else. But I don't think this was what it would look like if he was trying to make politically provocative comments. We don't actually have a clear, intentional, politically provocative comment from him.

I think you're right to single out the podcast. But the provocative action was going on the podcast in the first place, not what he actually said - where he went along with and egged on what the hosts were doing, rather than being the person making the provocation. (again to be clear - I don't think it has to matter to people's response - judging people for going along with and egging on is perfectly valid. I do think it matters when thinking about how Matty Healy engages in political provocation). Apart from that we get things like what he says before the band cuts him off - which I think are about the idea of political provocation - rather than involving him actually saying anything provocative. And then you have him doing things that actually make people angry in ways that he doesn't expect, rather than being provocative.

I do think Matty Healy is interested in provocation and transgression, and I think that is the biggest danger for his politics getting a lot worse. But I don't think provocation and transgression defines his politics at the moment.

I do think you're completely right about the risk of the process of radicalisation - and agree that there's a real risk with Matty Healy. I think I assess the risk as a little lower than you do. Partly for the reasons I've mentioned above, but also because I think he's interested in and aware of that process. But I do think there's a risk - and we won't know how high that risk is until we see how he responds to this last month. But I think it's worth saying that it's always a choice - we'll see how he chooses to respond.

#I still haven't intentionally listened to song from The 1975 #I'm pretty sure I must have heard some #when I was in the UK #because I used to listen to Radio 1 in the car #But I am pretty curious about these dynamics #and interested in what is coming next

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