In my more fervently goth days, I used to be obsessed with the different categories of goth. Did you know that industrial goths are distinct from ethereal goths? You might have heard of cyber goths, but have you heard of corp goths (grownup gloomsters who must dress for their day jobs in the office)? Did you know that a young or beginning goth is called a baby bat?
This obsession mirrored my fascination with other subcultures, including the world of gay men. I was intrigued when a coworker would describe a handbag as “cunty” or explain of another man that he “used to be an otter, but now he’s transitioning to bear.”
Lately, I’ve been seeking a deeper understanding of the many different proliferations of libertarianism. There are free-market Koch libertarians, “Don’t Tread On Me” rural-folk-outlaw libertarians, and libertarian aesthetes who don’t believe in the limitation of art on moral grounds.
In general I write about political matters with a sense of trepidation and humility, if not outright self-doubt. I am not an economist or a political expert. I am a goth named after a Jane Austen novel whose main career experience involves selling clothes. But I am also a patriot and a concerned citizen doing my best to figure out what is happening to our country. I will often say things that are wrong, or misguided. I am trying to gain an understanding in real time of how a responsible citizen should proceed.
I wanted to pursue fashion journalism until I realized that like many forms of journalism today, it functions as an arm of the Democratic Party and the social ideas that party would like to promote. In the end I realized that, due to being some form of Christian conservative at heart, I couldn’t do it. I do not believe in the “male gaze” or that cultural appropriation is bad. I wasn’t willing to hold up Planned Parenthood signs in Instagram posts for any company I worked for in the hallucination of the post-2016 election moment.
I’ve been questioning over the past few weeks if I am even a libertarian at all. I am wondering whether it is possible to be a Christian and a libertarian. I am disturbed, yet oddly swayed by insinuations by so-called “postliberals” that pluralism is little more than a smoke screen for moral relativism. I have been educating myself on writers who both explored aesthetics and were important thinkers on conservatism, like Edmund Burke (“A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful,” 1757) and Roger Scruton (“Sexual Desire,” 1986).
I also decided to dig out my Bernie shirt. Designed by Come Tees in 2020, I ordered it in the weeks just before the pandemic and I have to say it still looks fucking cool. Although I loathe the facile anti-capitalism that so many people my age wear like a cheap pin, I do see the ways that free-market fundamentalism has damaged this country. I see the way the rural red county I am living in, while still holding traditional values and a sense of community, has been completely gutted on an economic level and is now characterized by dilapidated trailer homes and Dollar General stores. I hate the way the press will obsess over coronavirus fatalities but shrug off the ever-increasing numbers of deaths of despair. The truth is that I really don’t care which side of the aisle the good ideas come from that will alleviate the economic pain of the American people. I am open to Bernie’s ideas and also to the proposals of new right-of-center organization American Compass. The idea of a country that no longer makes an idol of money, that seeks to “restore [a] … consensus that emphasizes the importance of family, community, and industry to the nation’s liberty and prosperity” is very appealing.
Traditionalist appeals to pre-Enlightenment value systems, as well as the woke movement in all its puritanical fervor, are both symptoms of the feeling that secular humanism— or perhaps liberalism itself— has failed. We need spirituality, as Lyman Stone confirms in a Faith Angle conversation: “Demand for religion is relatively stable … Even in highly secular societies, large shares of people still report a desire for transcendence, report spiritual experiences, senses of cosmic oneness.” He adds, “the mystics always win in history.” When I watch Washington Journal, I am similarly struck by the religiosity of many of the callers. That is why I have been trying to define some vision of Sacred Liberty— one that goes a step beyond Burke’s idea of ordered liberty. I do not believe in a degraded libertarianism, one that espouses empty expediency or simply doing whatever one wants. I am looking for a renewal and re-sanctification of the areas of American life that have lost their meaning. I am seeking the heart of my conscience and the ability to live by it.
Freedom is still worth believing in. Neither queers or American Muslims, for example, should have to live under a draconian Christian theocratic state. Neither should a domineering credentialed overclass impose its secular values on everyone else. I don’t see how America can function as anything other than a pluralistic society. And although my politics evolve every day, I would say that as of this morning I am a non-partisan Economic Populist and Sacred Libertarian.
I also hope that the blatant and disgusting classism that infects left-liberal discourse will one day be taken as seriously as the concerns over racism and sexism that have engulfed the country. I anticipate a time when statements such as the one above will be perceived as just as shameful as slights against any other group.
I will continue to wear my Bernie shirt. And if American Compass comes out with a sick shirt or other swag, I’ll probably wear that too. This goth remains against the establishment and for the people.