Simon Copland

“Let it all marinate Simon! It will make the end result tastier.”

It was sage advice from my good friend Holly last week, after I posted about the difficulty of sitting down, reading and feeling like I’ve accomplished something.

Over the past weeks I’ve realised the enormity of amount of material I need to get my head around. After months of delay I’ve finally decided to launch into Sexy Capitalism and am trying to do so with gusto. I’m working on the first few chapters, developing a proposal to send to publishers.

This, I’ve realised means a lot of reading. Actually, I knew this already, but the scale required has probably just dawned on me.

This is not a complaint.  I love the fact that I can spend most of my days reading interesting books and call it work. I am very lucky to have that luxury.

But sometimes it’s hard. Reading feels so unsatisfying at times. It’s difficult to feel like you are making progress when words are simply marinating in your brain rather than being put onto paper. I love to write things down, get them published, hear feedback, and then do it all again. There is a quick thrill to all of that — a thrill that reading does not provide.

But it must be done, and over the past week I’ve realised one other thing — when I read, I write. It’s good to be constantly putting things on paper, but if I really want to get into depth, to make something really tasty, I need to let things marinate properly. Reading gives me the inspiration to keep going. It gives me new ideas, new quotes, new thought bubbles — the very things good writing depends on.

So to the books! I’m sorry if there’s fewer things published in the coming months, but the end result will be much tastier!

Over the weekend climate activist Naomi Klein spoke at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas about her book, This Changes Everything. Not being in Sydney I watched Klein’s talk early this week. You can check it out here:

I am, in general, a big fan of Klein’s worked and really enjoyed This Changes Everything. In fact earlier this year I wrote an essay at Green Agenda on how we adapt Klein’s thesis to the Australian context. More than anyone else Klein has done what we’ve always needed to do — connect climate change to capitalism. This is a very important shift in the debate. 

Yet, in watching Klein’s speech I could not help but feel a little uneasy. Whilst Klein has connected climate change to capitalism she seems to at the same time use capitalism to solve the problem. 

In her FODI speech Klein said that climate change is “the collision between carbon pollution and a toxic ideology of market fundamentalism that has made it impossible for our shackled leaders to respond.” Later on, responding to questions from the audience, she said that she was not “against markets” but rather against the ideology that places markets above everything else. 

For the climate movement this has often been one of the biggest explanations as to why we are struggling to make progress. In her book Klein talks about “bad timing” — that the world has struggled to respond to climate change as it arrived at the exact same time as neoliberalism, which places markets above all other social and environmental needs.

It is here where Klein finds her solutions — a reinvestment in representative democracy that gives our leaders the space they to take action. In her speech she lists a number of these solutions — investment in green jobs, changing who profits from energy production, an end to corporate trade deals, carbon taxes, higher royalties on mining companies, and of course investment in public services. Of course this will never happen unless we change our democracy as well. The last phrase of that quote above is essential here. The problem with neoliberalism is that “it has made it impossible for our shackled leaders to respond”. We need therefore to turn this around, or as Klein says we need to “shut the revolving door between business and government.” We need to bring Governments back to a position of power so they solve the problem.

In other words the state will solve things for us — a position that is increasingly found in left reasoning. After the 2008 Global Financial Crisis for example many championed the idea of a “Green New Deal”; a model shaped on Roosevelt’s new deal of the 30s that saw mass public spending. Other activists have often looked at the investment Governments made during the early 40s to fight the Second World War. This investment changed the shape of Western economies dramatically within the space of just a few years. If they could do that then, why can’t they do it now? All we need to do, the left is saying, is give Government the authority to act.

It is this argument that I find increasingly unconvincing.

While the left often equates capitalism to neoliberal markets, capitalism is far more complex than that. In relation to this discussion in particular I think many in the left have failed to fully grasp the role the state plays in capitalist society. Let’s put this simply: the modern state is an integral part of capitalism. The state and capitalism grew together, and each depend on the other for their survival. The state is there to represent the interests of the capitalist, and political, class. It always has, and always will.

It is here where the idea of a once great and progressive state becomes problematic. While yes the state once had more authority to implement mass programs such as The New Deal, that did not mean it did so in order to best represent the interests of the general population. In fact Roosevelt, the great progressive hero, was regularly criticised for being too close to Wall St interests, with much of the New Deal being opposed by elements of the US left. The New Deal was a response to a political need of the time, but was a response that largely benefited the capitalist and political class.

And it is with this understanding that I fear the consequences of Klein’s solutions. While Klein often talks about building a ‘mass movement’, something which is clearly necessary, this movement is still one targeted at politicians. She wants a movement to convince politicians that they should act in our interests.

Klein therefore is advocating for the use of capitalism to solve a problem caused by capitalism. While it may be great (it also may not) if the state did much of what Klein wants it to do, I find it unconvincing it is possible. You cannot separate capitalist economy from the state and therefore I struggle to believe that our political class is ever going to implement major changes that threaten capitalism in the way Klein advocates. Here is where you end up with a strange middle proposition. If we rely on the state to solve the problems for us then they are going to do so in ways that benefit their own class interests. It was this that lead to the doomed emissions trading schemes in years gone by and it this that I suspect will result in geoengineering being presented as the next great solution. These are “solutions”, devised by the state, that in no way challenges their class interests. In doing so they are solutions that are non-solutions.

This all seems really strange when Klein, and the environment movement as a whole, seem to have many of the other answers right in front of her. Some of the greatest climate movements of recent years — divestment and direct action in particular — have been so successful because they have bypassed the political class in order to achieve their goals. These are forms of direct action that don’t rely on us asking our leaders to do something for us. They are actions in which we show our own leadership. Klein also talks about the rise of energy collectives in Germany, structures that operate outside the capitalist economic and political system, and are solving climate change at the same time. These structures are far more convincing to me than movements that ask our political class to do things for us.

Naomi Klein is certainly inspiration to watch and she certainly has got it right that capitalism is the problem. But by turning almost solely to the state she is also trying to use capitalism to solve the problem as well. Can you solve a problem caused by capitalism with more capitalism? I don’t think so.

Last week I published a review of Genes and the Bioimaginary by Deborah Lynn Steinberg in The Guardian. The book covers a whole range of research about genetics, but one chapter — on the gay gene — particularly grabbed my interest. Below is the first draft of the article I wrote for The Guardian (completely overhauled), which focuses on the gay gene chapter and a debate I’ve had with Dr Qazi Rahman on the issue. Enjoy!

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In a recent response to my article questioning the science of the ‘gay gene’ Dr Qazi Rahman argued that not only is the science of the gene ‘on track’, but that gay, lesbian and bisexuals should embrace it as a way to further LGB rights. As he argued: 

“Finding evidence for a biological basis should not scare us or undermine gay, lesbian and bisexual (LGB) rights (the studies I refer to do not include transgendered individuals, so I’ll confine my comments to lesbian, gay and bisexual people). I would argue that understanding our fundamental biological nature should make us more vigorous in promoting LGB rights.”

I was really happy to see Dr. Rahman’s response and in particular that he engaged with the politics around the gene. While I clearly disagree with Dr. Rahman on the validity of the science I think he misses a key issue. Dr Rahman’s political position is based on the idea that ‘the science is there’ and that it is just up to society to figure out how to deal with it. Science is neutral in the whole process. A recently published book, Genes and the Bioimginary, written by Professor Deborah Lynn Steinberg from the University of Warwick, argues this is not the case.

In Genes and the Bioimaginary Steinberg investigates the cross between genetic research and our society. Steinberg argues that “culture — including science — forms the context, locus and foundation of the search for genes.” In other words, genetic science both shapes culture and is inherently shaped by culture, or as Steinberg explained to me “the popular has infused the scientific even as the scientific has infused the popular.” 

Steinberg makes this argument through a range of informative and interesting case studies, from the search for a ‘criminal’ and a ‘Jewish’ gene to the role of genes in debates about race, gender and even in science fiction. But it is in her chapter on the gay gene that I think she makes her point the best. In doing so it offers a fascinating insight to Dr. Rahman and my debate.

Steinberg starts with the premise that the very search for the gay gene is problematic as it is searching for a biological cause for a cultural construct. This is the exact argument I made in my initial piece. But Steinberg expands on this by arguing the scientific research pointed to by advocates such as Dr. Rahman have been hugely influenced by the way homosexuality is constructed within our culture. 

To do so Steinberg looks at the first key study into the ‘gay gene’, released by Dean Hamer in the journal Science in 1993. For a quick reminder Hamer’s study investigated 40 pairs of self-identified gay brothers, with the team arguing markers on the X chromosome could influence the development of same-sex orientation in men. Look at Hamer’s process however, and we can see particular cultural influences that not only shaped the research but the following debate.

Hamer’s study was conducted in two parts. The first involved creating family trees for the gay men with the aim of identifying other gay relatives. The result showed more relatives on the maternal than the paternal side. From this Hamer inferred a pattern of maternal inheritance, discounting fathers as part of the genetic process. Part two of the study involved an analysis of the DNA of the gay brothers ‘to see if they had inherited genes in common that could, by inference, be linked to their sexuality’. It was from this that Hamer concluded that homosexuality could be influenced by markers on the X chromosome — or in other words that there was a gay gene passed down by mothers.

Scientists have criticised Hamer’s study for not being ‘statistically significant’ (i.e. there were not enough participants to draw conclusions) but investigating the process opens up new questions. Primarily, Steinberg argues that the process, which focused heavily on maternal markers was based in cultural stereotypes of gay men. As she told me:

“In many different respects the premises of the research were all embedded in pre-existing cultural stereotypes and ideas about gay men and about their relationships with their mothers. They were, in a way, tired tropes. What I was suggesting there is that it’s science from a false premise. The underlying assumptions that organise doing that kind of research were already problematic.”

She expands on this in the book, where she examines the popular reception to Hamer’s study. As Steinberg describes, press reportage at the time took up stereotypes of gay men being inherently connected to their mothers. As she says: 

“Maternal influence was understood throughout the ‘gay gene’ reportage as ‘singularly to blame’ for the ostensible compromised masculinity of gay sons. ‘Gay genes’ maternally inherited,  recapitulated tropes of embodied effeminacy  — popular stereotypes of gay men – intrinsically flawed through their direct corporeal links with femaleness’”

We see this play out significantly in the debate about the gay gene. The Born This Way Blog for example, one of my favourite places to visit when researching this issue, is full of childhood photos people have posted in order to ‘prove’ their sexuality is biological. Little camp boys strutting their stuff apparently highlight that not only is homosexuality genetic, but that it equates to an effeminate personality. This is, Steinberg argues, the problematic basis of the search for the gay gene — a cultural influence that opens up significant questions about the direction of the science.

On a side note is it worth asking whether this can provide some answers as to why, as Dr. Rahman notes, scientific research into female, and in particular lesbian, sexuality is virtually non-existent. Gay gene theorists base their science on an understanding of homosexuality as being a uniform, identifiable identity. In doing so they rarely separate gay men from lesbian women — we are all treated as a uniform same. But if the gay gene comes from the maternal side it throws up serious questions if that is the same for lesbian women. How would our standard image of the butch lesbian match with science that argues lesbians comes from mothers? Are we not searching for that because theorists do not want to find an answer?

Back to Steinberg’s research. As I said before Steinberg argues that not only does culture influence genetic science, but that genetic science has had a major influence on our culture. And here again the influence rests heavily on women.

Steinberg explained to me that she began investigating the gay gene to look at what she at first assumed would take the form of a ‘moral panic’ that typified media reportage at that time about gay lives. Thus she was expecting the reportage of the gay gene would result in a broad panic about the very existence of homosexuality. However, that wasn’t the case. Instead we saw what many would consider a more liberal approach — calls for the science not to be used to repress gay people, and in fact, as Dr. Rahman argues to be used to further LGB rights.

But that does not mean the moral panic did not occur — rather, it was directed at elsewhere: at ‘bad scientists’ and, perhaps most importantly, at ‘bad’ women. The release of the Hamer’s study, and every one to follow it, was met with concern that women would start aborting children who were gay, and in turn calls for restrictions on their rights to do so. “Hence,” Steinberg argues in the book, “the call for a ‘gene charter’ which pits gay freedom against women’s choice and reconstitutes gay rights struggle as a corollary of anti-abortion politics.” Across all of the reportage, women were typcially framed both as ‘homogenic’ (they passed along ‘gay genes’) and as  homophobic (the would abort gay pregnancies).

For Steinberg this is not surprising. Harmer’s study came on the heels of the United Kingdom debating legislation on whether to criminalise late abortions, making abortion a key frame for the ‘gay gene’ debate. However, it goes beyond that. In the first chapter of her book Steinberg points out that the disproportionate burden of genetic diagnostic technology has tended to fall on women — and in particular women’s bodies. This is in part because genetic screening on embryos or in pregnancy involve intrusive procedures on women’s bodies.  It makes sense then that women emerged as a preoccupation of debate about the gay gene, where women were seen at one and the same time as ‘responsible’ for gay genes and threat to their continued existence.

Qazi Rahman is right to debate the political implications of the search for a gay gene.

But in doing so we cannot ignore the culture and the politics that lead to, and influence the search in the first place. Doing so opens up even more questions both about the validity of the science, and more importantly about whether we ever want to find a biological cause for homosexuality in the first place. The gay gene has not only reinforced harmful stereotypes used against gay men, but has also been used as a tool to attack the rights of women. That should give us all pause.

Genes and the Bioimaginary: Science, Spectacle, Culture, by Deborah Lynn Steinberg is published by Ashgate http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409462552

 

This week I interviewed Christopher Ryan, the co-author of the ground breaking book, Sex at Dawn. 

Originally published at ByLine, 31 August, 2015

We often act as if the nuclear family is as old as society itself. Prehistoric families, we’re told, were like The Flintstones — just a less technologically advanced version of our own family structure. But is this really the case?

This week I interview the co-author of the ground breaking book Sex at Dawn, Christopher Ryan. In our interview we discuss prehistoric families, the sex of apes, David Bowie and whether civilisation is actually any good for human kind.

Simon:

Hi Christopher, thanks for the interview. Let’s start with Sex at Dawn. Can you tell our readers what you argue in the book?

Christopher:

Essentially we argue that human sexuality is not primarily about reproduction; that it’s been co-opted by homo sapiens for social purposes. Human beings have sex far more than virtually all mammals.

So human sexuality is merely unique in the fact that we have so much non-reproductive sex. What that indicates is that sexuality fulfils functions as well as reproduction for human beings, as well as dolphins, chimpanzees and bonobos, which are all highly social and highly intelligent species. In all of these species it’s become sort of a social lubricant, a bonding device primarily. And the reproductive elements are secondary.

Simon: You use a range of evidence to back up these claims. Can you go into some more depth about those arguments?

Christopher:

We draw from four sources of data; anthropology, human anatomy and physiology, primatology and contemporary psychosexual research.

For example some of the most interested anthropological evidence we find is that there are plentiful societies around the world in which paternity is not a priority.

That’s something that should not be possible if the mainstream view of human sexual evolution were correct. Because that view argues that humans have always been obsessed with paternity because men would not want to invest in the offspring of other men. So the vision of parenthood in those paradigms is all economical. But what we find is that hunter gatherer societies don’t conform to that economic model. In fact they conform to something much closer to a socialistic or communistic economic model.

We found a lot of societies where paternity is either a minor issue or a non-issue. For example there are societies in the Amazon where people literally believe a foetus is made from accumulated semen. Therefore a woman is likely to have sex with several different men in order to assure the essence of those men will combine in her foetus. So she’ll have sex with the funny man, and the smart man and the man who’s the best hunter in order to get these qualities into her babies.

We also talk about the Mosul in China where the biological father of a woman’s child really has no obligation whatsoever to be involved in the child’s life. The paternal responsibility for the child falls to a woman’s brothers. They have the primary responsibility of raising, protecting and nurturing those children from the male perspective.

So these sorts of counter examples should be virtually impossible without some sort of extreme cultural force being applied, but in fact what you find is that they pop up all over the world.

And then of course you’ve got the closest primates to humans, bonobos and chimps, and neither of them are particularly obsessed with paternity. Some of the chimps behaviour indicates they may have more of a concern with paternity; there is infanticide, there is a habit of dominant males taking fertile females away from the group, seemingly trying to restrict her sexual interaction with other males. But with bonobos you find absolutely no control by males of the sexual behaviour of females. The question of biological paternity of bonobos is completely obscured by their promiscuous sexual behaviour.

Simon: So how did we get to the norm we have today? In particular why was agriculture so important to shifting sexual attitudes?

Christopher:

Agriculture was pivotal because it introduced the notion of private property.

Once you get this idea of owning things then you start thinking about owning people — you have slaves, you have children seen as the property of the parent or the father, you have women seen as the property of the patriarch. When you have property you start thinking about who’s going to get your property when you die. You’ve spent your life accumulating this property so now you want to make sure it goes to your son. So how do you make sure it’s your son? By controlling the sexual behaviour of your wife. That’s the only way to do it.

Simon: Why was it men who took control when private property came about?

Christopher:

That’s a huge debate and I don’t think anyone has a final answer. The typical response is that upper body strength was essential. With the advent of agricultural society you have the necessity to farm and farming is really hard work that requires a lot of upper body strength. So men’s upper body strength led to more control because they were able to do the sort of work that was most required.

Personally I don’t find that argument to be compelling. I think it has more to do with men being the primary hunters in hunter-gatherer societies, meaning men were more adept with weaponry. When you get agricultural societies, the hierarchy, the organisation, you also get warfare. So you get these conflicts and men are just much more adapted to warfare because of their proficiency with weaponry and possibly because we’re more willing to kill one another.

To me that’s a stronger line of argument, but it’s probably a bit of both.

Simon: Let’s talk about sex today. In your opinion are we seeing a shift where people are breaking away from the norms of the family as you’ve described?

Christopher:

Yeah, very quickly. The acceptance of same-sex marriage is huge in terms of cultural shift, for many reasons. A basic acknowledgement of human rights is the most fundamental way to look at it, but I think it’s very interesting is that explicitly acknowledges that marriage is not about having babies. One of the arguments that the conservatives have always made is that two men can’t have a baby, but what i’m arguing is that sex has never been about having babies. So if sex is not about having babies, if sex is primarily about establishing intimacy, trust, shared pleasure and establishing social networks, then whether its across sexual lines or same-sex really has no importance whatsoever. I see the acknowledgement of same-sex marriage as an acknowledgement of a fundamental argument we make in Sex and Dawn.

Simon: You’re working on a new book. What’s it about?

Christopher: 

The book is called Civilised to Death and the subtitle is ‘why everything is amazing and nobody’s happy’.

We’re saying what’s going on where civilisation is supposed to be this amazing accomplishment providing technological advancements daily, yet suicide rates are up, depression rates are up, senseless inexplicable wars seems to never stop, a third of the children in America are living in poverty? If this is progress, what are we progressing towards?

I thought it was time to step back and reassess civilisation. What this book is essentially asking is civilisation really a net gain for our species and I argue it’s not.

Of course people’s perspectives are different. Some would say ‘I wouldn’t be alive in a prehistoric society’. Everyone can have their personal take on the question but I think it is legitimate to question whether the advances of civilisations are better for us individually or whether we’re being sold a package of bullshit.

Simon: One last question. In our chats before we talked about a shared love for David Bowie. What is your favourite song or album of his?

Christopher: 

There are a lot of songs I really like. The one that first pulled me in was Fame. I was a kid when that came out, late seventies probably. I think it was the first time I heard someone who was really famous talking about how much bullshit it is, how false it is.

In a way that is what I am doing with this book Civilised to Death. There are these things that we’re told to aspire to, like fame, fortune, have sex with lots of people, whatever the way you accumulate points in life. But when the “lucky” few make it to the top of that mountain what they find is that it’s no different from where they started out.

Joseph Campbell argues that is the heroes journey, you go out, you have all these experiences, you’re searching for something and then at the end you go back where you started and what you found is yourself. We’re all running on this wheel and we’re all told that if you get a little bit more money, or get famous or successful then you’ll be happy. That song really struck me because there’s a guy saying “I’m famous and it doesn’t work”.

Of course David Bowie was also a pioneer in other ways. Way before Prince there was Bowie questioning gender. At a time where men were afraid to be seen as effeminate there’s a person getting out there and flaunting it. Identify me! I dare you. I admire him as much for his theatrical performance as much for his musical ability.

Simon: Thank you so much for taking the time today.