real utopias

Is there any role for classic-humanist literature in the moral/spiritual outlook of 21st century socialists?  There certainly was for the leading 19th century socialist: Karl Marx constantly reread and studied such authors as Aeschylus, Shakespeare, and Balzac, and his writings are sprinkled with forceful quotations ranging from Homer to Jonathan Swift.  His successors also drew upon classic authors—such as Rousseau and Tolstoy—for inspiration and moral enlightenment.  And it was only after reading Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, recalled the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, that he became a socialist.

But, of course, the Olympics are not happening in Uganda and perhaps Ugandan LGBTQ peoples don’t fit quite as neatly into what appears to be a very vanilla understanding of “queer” interests in America. One gallery-goer’s response, when asked what he made of the presentation and responses to myriad issues laid bare by the Games, carried a sharp resonance: “I just don’t know — these days it seems like nobody protests, we just party.”