Affective dissonance: some thoughts on Gabriel Attal
“France Gets Its Youngest and First Openly Gay Prime Minister”, reads the NYTimes headline, Jan 9. Gabriel Attal, 34, has become the youngest and first openly gay prime minister, other press loudly and proudly announces.
Ambivalence in me arises, or more accurately, an affective dissonance, as Cronin called.
The “affection” of course, comes from: human nature in the desire of seeking belonging, accentuated by years of inflicted alienating pain by heteronormative society rejecting queer bodies, and culture (in a very broad sense). Any sign such as this, of “normalizes” queerness warrants some celebration.
But not waiting for the previous sentences to close, an immediate visceral dissonance arises.
Similar to the marriage equality act passing, that we need the “sanctioned approval” to get married to begin with. The bill predisposes the “queer people are less than” that is never diminished after the passing of the act.
And not to mention all the historical, political, religious and economic concerns marriage as an institution bears. Including but not limited to, the Judeo-Christian social ritual which views sexuality as inherently sinful and shameful, therefore marriage is to sanction sex. And by further atomizing already highly isolating individualist society, further undermining communalism (the lonely married men phenomena). And perhaps the worst of all, “assortative mating” worsened inequality (Greenwood, Jeremy, Nezih Guner, Georgi Kocharkov, and Cezar Santos. AER, 2014).
And then there is the almost automatic link between politicized identity and the given benefits for the group he/she/they represent. In other words, Attal will be good for the gays. This is a cheap and fallible mental lethargy exploited again and again by politicians. Not to diminish the role model and its signifying effect, but has Peter Buttigieg done anything specifically good for the gays?
And more importantly, is the harm of the othering, the alienating effect of any politicizing identity, by identifying some, you are by definition excluding others. Married vs not married, gays vs non-gays, and amidst the muddiness, Attal’s arises is also Macaron’s pushing out Elisabeth Borne, the first female PM in 30 years (second female in history).
Cronin’s juxtaposition of the 2004 Irish citizenship referendum, which only grants citizenship by blood/descend, compares to the 2015 gay marriage equality referendum, shows that such society can simultaneous be progressive and regressive, in its politicized identities from bottom up.
Another risky automatism is linking “youngest” with “bold and innovative, new energy, even revolution”. As part of neoliberal sheltered elitist group, Atal, or “Macron 2.0”, shows no sign of changing the political and policy course already set in motion. And of course, youth worshiping along with its sexual undertone is yet another alienating force to beckon with, ever more relevant with the Nov US election.
Judith Butler, therefore, challenges us to open up “another kind of normative aspiration within the field of politics… if I am struggling for autonomy, do I not need to struggle for something else as well, a conception of myself invariably in community, impressed upon by others”. In other words, loosen the rigidity of identity and its politicized narrowness, embrace self is never individual, and always communal.
