3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sharp, witty essays take on the gay movement and the left, January 4, 1998
By A Customer
"From time immemorial," Emma Goldman declared in 1913, "the wise and practical have denounced every heroic spirit... idealists and visionaries, foolish enough to throw caution to the winds, have advanced mankind." Scott Tucker belongs to the second category. He dares to call himself not only queer but non-monogamous, and - horror of horrors - a democratic socialist. Tucker reminds us that Oscar Wilde shared all three stances, which is not immodesty, but a salutary reminder that queer liberation can and must be linked with social and economic liberation. For Tucker, freedom is indivisible, a position which leads him into witty polemics against his fellow gay activists, not to mention the current President of the United States.
The real achievement of The Queer Question (South End Press, $30 hardcover/$18 paper) is Tucker's linkage of queer consciousness with class: "For many people in this country, including queers, the social climate is only tolerable at best, and sometimes murderous at worst." His idealism consists in connecting the oppression queers feel to sexism, classism and the horrors of "the corporate state."
Tucker refers to Wilhelm Reich, the Freudian heretic who made these same connections over 60 years ago, but to his credit, The Queer Question (unique among books of its sort) advances no Theory and shills for no Discourse. Indeed, the essay on Foucault brilliantly criticizes him as a "materialist mystic" whose bravura philosophizing blinds his readers to social fact.
Most of the essays are, however, more topical, centering especially on the culture wars of the past 10 years with special reference to the queers' "battered wife" relationship to Bill Clinton. Tucker makes the point, so obvious that almost nobody else seems to get it, that a President who ends welfare and backs the Defense of Marriage Act was never a "friend" of gays and lesbians, merely a shrewd opportunist. One wishes that Tucker can find the time for an essay devoted purely to the growing literature about Clinton and his queer "allies," like David Mixner's memoir.
If The Queer Question has a weakness, it's precisely this topicality. I suspect that in 10 or 20 years, the book will need footnotes to explain who are half of Tucker's targets - a hazard of all political writing. But right now, right here, the book should inspire any Left radical with hope and canny tactical advice.
Although he doesn't write much about ACT UP, Tucker's commitment to the group evidently taught him many of the bitter lessons he recounts here: lessons in the uselessness of "liberals," in the importance of connecting queer struggles with anti-racist and anti-sexist battles, in the indivisibility of freedom. One might guess that Tucker's vision of socialism stems at least partly from ACT UP's freewheeling style. But since he lays out no program for American socialism different from, say, Michael Harrington, he probably intends his book as (to quote Emerson) provocation, not instruction.
And Tucker is provocative! Camille Paglia is "the Rush Limbaugh of post-feminism." Larry Kramer displays "the anarchism of the arrogant." And - an insight worth the price of admission - "Liberalism is class-consciousness with a bad conscience." With jabs like these, Tucker forces you to think (even while you gasp and laugh) and rethink your own positions. The essayist who comes to mind is Gore Vidal, and since Vidal may be the best around, that's a compliment to Tucker's wit.
The other great virtue of The Queer Question is its historical perspective. An essay on the Netherlands reminds on that persecuting queers didn't start with Jesse Helms, and throughout the book Tucker puts into context 1997's struggles by referring to the ugly traditions of intolerance against queers and all sexual "deviants." Yet Tucker reads history in a more hopeful light as well, very much in the socialist tradition of Marx and Gramsci - as the forward movement of the struggle for freedom. To that extent, he's an idealist, the very trait he deplores in Foucault. He does seem to believe that queers' struggles to belong to some unfolding, historical design. Let's hope Tucker has that one right. Certainly the closet doors of America can't be nailed shut just because the Falwells and the Buchanans want them sealed. The Queer Question reminds one that, however disgusting this moment in American life may be, there is a revolutionary tradition we can connect with, and also the certainty that even bigotry may yet be forced to yield.
Book Review by Lawrence Richette
Courtesy of Au Courant:
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
library journal recommends The Queer Question, January 7, 1998
By A Customer
"The author, a gay health activist and journalist, offers a progressive vision of democracy as an experiment, a process in need of constant renewal, as seen through the lens of the gay rights movement. The essays cover such topics as the right to privacy vs. the right to live openly in the world, the need to redefine the family to include the true nature of relations in modern society, feminism and gay porn, and the reinvigoration of what the author views as an all too moribund social democratic agenda now abandoned by the traditional left wing in the United States. Tucker has an effective, almost relentless gift for pushing the envelope of an argument, taking nothing for granted and questioning every position, including his own. This challenging, often provocative work by a distinctive voice of a newer, more radicalized left is highly recommended." Library Journal, Nov. 1, 1977
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Exemplary theoretical AND practical political reading, April 18, 2003
As a liberal democrat, I am likely somewhat more conservative when paired against Mr. Tucker's own evidently admitted political ideologies, but I found this essay collection well researched, thoughful, and useful for a final course project on American Queer political theory.
The exact subjects of the essays varry by topic, but an overall theme examines how the late 20th century GLBT political movement undersold it's own radical roots for political expidency, and a chance to sit at the proverbial policy making table with some people who would altogether pretend they not exist.
Obvious and easy to only launch attacks (however well-deserved) at the religious right, whose various campaigns against GLBT Americans all come back to bigotry and intolerance, he also takes on allies who mince words and confuse policy making's inherent requirements with the right to sell out all of one's principles.
Intra-community criticism is never easy (especially in the middle of various social movement struggles) but a neccessary pre-condition to ensure policy innovations continue to impact the dominant society while keeping the social movement relevant.
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