Cowboy Christianity
The militant masculinity of evangelicals, how Starbucks unionized, climate change as class warfare, and more
June 9
In this week’s issue of Public Seminar, Annelise Orleck talks to the teenage organizers of a new labor movement, Vince Carducci and Lindsay Myers tackle climate change, Claire Potter examines a sinister education bill, Kristen Kobes Du Mez and Chrisaleen Ciro discuss the unapologetic patriarchs of the white evangelical church, and more.
Climate Crisis
“One of the most common misconceptions about eco-anxiety is that it is a ‘rich people problem.’ Often portrayed as a rich girl piously refusing to use a plastic straw, it is also a tribal elder grieving the loss of natural resources, or the grief, fear, and anger of marginalized communities experiencing the direct and indirect effects of climate change without the resources to cope with them.” Lindsay Myers examines how the climate crisis is affecting global mental health. (June 2, 2022)
Vince Carducci reviews Matthew Huber’s Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet (Verso, 2022) and the argument for a “proletarian ecology” to meet the challenge of a warming planet. “The climate dispute is currently the purview of a professional class of intellectuals, technocrats, and other knowledge workers—the credentialed beneficiaries of postwar meritocracy—who rely on scientific knowledge, technological intervention, and ‘smart’ policy recommendations to carry the day. Among this class, in Huber’s reading, there is the assumption that things will necessarily change for the better if only the ‘objective, scientific facts’ could be properly communicated and accepted and remediating tactics put into place.” (June 7, 2022)
Union Fever
“Like most successful movements, the organizing drive picked up speed as it succeeded. In the beginning of April, there were eight unionized Starbucks. By June 6, 116 stores had unionized, and hundreds more had filed for recognition. But Starbucks may be part of a larger trend. At the beginning of May, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) estimated that applications for union representation are up 57 percent nationally over 2021. Starbucks alone accounts for a quarter of those petitions, a remarkable statistic since only 1 percent of the food and drink industry was unionized at the beginning of the year. Young Starbucks organizers told me they learned about trade unions working for the Bernie Sanders campaign.” Annelise Orleck tracks the progress of a dynamic new labor movement. (June 7, 2022)
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The American Right
“If you go back to the Cold War era, it makes sense that part of being a Christian man—part of being an American man—is to defend Christian America. You need strength; you need to be on the battlefield. It made sense in that historical moment. But then, what becomes of this conception of masculinity ultimately distorts core Christian teachings about, not just masculinity, but about Christianity itself.” Kristen Kobes Du Mez talks to Chrisaleen Ciro about white evangelical Christianity as a form of consumer culture. (June 8, 2022)
Republican legislators recently passed H.B. 151, a bill that bans trans athletes from participating in sports restricted to a single gender and prohibits qualified girls from competing on boys’ teams. The bill is a shocking attack on the right to privacy, explains Claire Potter: “H.B. 151 permits any person to identify an athlete (this would be a female athlete, of course) as potentially being trans. The accusation would result in immediately pulling that athlete from competition and forcing her to submit to a visual examination of her genitals, as well as a pelvic exam to determine that she has ovaries and a uterus.” (June 6, 2022)
In the latest episode of Past Present, the podcast team discuss the massacre of school children in Texas and the unique American obsession with gun rights. (June 7, 2022)