4 ms·

I’d recommend “And The Band Played On” for a thoughtful and well-researched narrative of the early AIDS crisis. There was plenty of blame to go around, includin

I’d recommend “And The Band Played On” for a thoughtful and well-researched narrative of the early AIDS crisis. There was plenty of blame to go around, including for the CDC and the gay communities.

throwanem 6y ago
I think that's a really tendentious reading of Shilts' work. The CDC, yes, but it's asking far too much of gay communities, whose relationship with law enforcement and public health authorities, which at that time had been and still was nothing but oppressive, to then immediately heed those authorities' demands to stop participating in what was then a very fundamental aspect of gay culture - and, too, the single aspect of it most distasteful to outsiders. You can argue that that culture was very vulnerable to a disease like AIDS, and that's fair. You can argue that, had that culture changed faster and more comprehensively, it may have mitigated the crisis somewhat, and that's fair too - although I'd argue the effect would likely not have been very significant. But to cast blame on the same communities which were repeatedly decimated in large part as a result of those authorities' lack of concern over whether they so much as lived or died - a lack of concern which, as Shilts' own work which you cite makes clear, was so persistent and profound as not to be shifted until gay people themselves fought their way into positions of sufficient power as to have meaningful impact on policy, and not until one of Ronald Reagan's personal friends died of the disease and thus forced him finally to recognize the essential humanity of others likewise afflicted? The kindest thing I can find to call such a position is insultingly absurd.
- haram_masala 6y ago
  You must have read a different book than I did, then. Because the book you read seems to completely ignore the battles Cleve Jones and others fought within the gay community. Keep in mind, the very title of the book was meant to apply to everyone involved in this crisis. Everyone. To miss that point is, frankly, dangerous.
  - throwanem 6y ago
    It's presentist to overlook the debate between liberation and assimilation as focuses for the movement, which these days is largely settled but in those was very much an active issue, and the effect it had on the way these events played out. Liberationism and bathhouse culture were closely intertwined, and bathhouse culture had been a bête noire of the assimilationist faction for some time before AIDS showed up. Demands to "stop having sex", or at least to stop having sex in this particular style, were a longstanding feature of that internal conflict, and it wasn't unreasonable early on for folks on the liberationist side to regard this newest call as essentially just more of the same. As the scope and gravity of the problem became obvious, people did gradually change their behavior, but the relatively long asymptomatic period and relatively high transmissibility of the virus meant that, by the time that happened, it was too late to do all that much good. Sure, an early and assertive response within the community might have had a real effect on the outcome. But this is well within the territory of expecting people to act on the basis of perfect information which, at the time for action, neither they nor anyone else actually had - or, put more succinctly, of presentism in the historiographical sense. I don't blame Shilts for that; he wrote in 1987, when the crisis was still in a very real sense ongoing. We, by contrast, have the benefit of a quarter century's distance and study from which to look back on those days now. We can do better, and should.
- blululu 6y ago
  Perhaps I am misreading this but the premise is that it’s unfair to ask a marginalized community to comply with public health ordinances so that community has no responsibility for the spread of a disease? But the community effected by a disease is also the most able to carry out interventions so this is almost to throw our hands up and accept an epidemic. Yes the gay community was marginalized and oppressed by civil society at many levels. But hosting massive contagion events during an epidemic is highly unethical. If Diane Feinstein had not closed the bathhouses the disease would have continued to multiply and even then people resisted any interventions. The current culture wars around masks emerged around condoms. To simply exculpate a community because they had been treated badly ignores the many choices people made at a personal level to spread a lethal disease, and makes it near impossible to stop such a disease.
  - throwanem 6y ago
    The premise is that it's not reasonable to expect a community maltreated by public health and law enforcement for decades to instantaneously reverse themselves and comply with those authorities' dictates when, at long last, those dictates are finally motivated by something other than abusive and too often outright lethal prejudice. As I noted in a response to your sibling comment, this implicitly expects people to act on the basis of knowledge which, at the time they have to choose their actions, does not yet even exist. It's an easy mistake for an armchair historiographer to make, but that it's easy constitutes no excuse. I'm not even going to address the suggestion that gay bathhouse culture in the 1980s is somehow to blame for COVID anti-maskers in the 2020s.
  - howinteresting 6y ago
    It is society's fault that it created an environment of distrust in public health among a marginalized group. (It is not society's fault if there is distrust among a dominant group, such as with COVID vaccines and white Republicans.) Power differences are the single most important fact of society, and too many people assume symmetries exist in situations that are actually asymmetric.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

throwanem 6y ago

I think that's a really tendentious reading of Shilts' work. The CDC, yes, but it's asking far too much of gay communities, whose relationship with law enforcement and public health authorities, which at that time had been and still was nothing but oppressive, to then immediately heed those authorities' demands to stop participating in what was then a very fundamental aspect of gay culture - and, too, the single aspect of it most distasteful to outsiders. You can argue that that culture was very vulnerable to a disease like AIDS, and that's fair. You can argue that, had that culture changed faster and more comprehensively, it may have mitigated the crisis somewhat, and that's fair too - although I'd argue the effect would likely not have been very significant. But to cast blame on the same communities which were repeatedly decimated in large part as a result of those authorities' lack of concern over whether they so much as lived or died - a lack of concern which, as Shilts' own work which you cite makes clear, was so persistent and profound as not to be shifted until gay people themselves fought their way into positions of sufficient power as to have meaningful impact on policy, and not until one of Ronald Reagan's personal friends died of the disease and thus forced him finally to recognize the essential humanity of others likewise afflicted? The kindest thing I can find to call such a position is insultingly absurd.

haram_masala 6y ago
You must have read a different book than I did, then. Because the book you read seems to completely ignore the battles Cleve Jones and others fought within the gay community. Keep in mind, the very title of the book was meant to apply to everyone involved in this crisis. Everyone. To miss that point is, frankly, dangerous.
- throwanem 6y ago
  It's presentist to overlook the debate between liberation and assimilation as focuses for the movement, which these days is largely settled but in those was very much an active issue, and the effect it had on the way these events played out. Liberationism and bathhouse culture were closely intertwined, and bathhouse culture had been a bête noire of the assimilationist faction for some time before AIDS showed up. Demands to "stop having sex", or at least to stop having sex in this particular style, were a longstanding feature of that internal conflict, and it wasn't unreasonable early on for folks on the liberationist side to regard this newest call as essentially just more of the same. As the scope and gravity of the problem became obvious, people did gradually change their behavior, but the relatively long asymptomatic period and relatively high transmissibility of the virus meant that, by the time that happened, it was too late to do all that much good. Sure, an early and assertive response within the community might have had a real effect on the outcome. But this is well within the territory of expecting people to act on the basis of perfect information which, at the time for action, neither they nor anyone else actually had - or, put more succinctly, of presentism in the historiographical sense. I don't blame Shilts for that; he wrote in 1987, when the crisis was still in a very real sense ongoing. We, by contrast, have the benefit of a quarter century's distance and study from which to look back on those days now. We can do better, and should.
blululu 6y ago
Perhaps I am misreading this but the premise is that it’s unfair to ask a marginalized community to comply with public health ordinances so that community has no responsibility for the spread of a disease? But the community effected by a disease is also the most able to carry out interventions so this is almost to throw our hands up and accept an epidemic. Yes the gay community was marginalized and oppressed by civil society at many levels. But hosting massive contagion events during an epidemic is highly unethical. If Diane Feinstein had not closed the bathhouses the disease would have continued to multiply and even then people resisted any interventions. The current culture wars around masks emerged around condoms. To simply exculpate a community because they had been treated badly ignores the many choices people made at a personal level to spread a lethal disease, and makes it near impossible to stop such a disease.
- throwanem 6y ago
  The premise is that it's not reasonable to expect a community maltreated by public health and law enforcement for decades to instantaneously reverse themselves and comply with those authorities' dictates when, at long last, those dictates are finally motivated by something other than abusive and too often outright lethal prejudice. As I noted in a response to your sibling comment, this implicitly expects people to act on the basis of knowledge which, at the time they have to choose their actions, does not yet even exist. It's an easy mistake for an armchair historiographer to make, but that it's easy constitutes no excuse. I'm not even going to address the suggestion that gay bathhouse culture in the 1980s is somehow to blame for COVID anti-maskers in the 2020s.
- howinteresting 6y ago
  It is society's fault that it created an environment of distrust in public health among a marginalized group. (It is not society's fault if there is distrust among a dominant group, such as with COVID vaccines and white Republicans.) Power differences are the single most important fact of society, and too many people assume symmetries exist in situations that are actually asymmetric.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]