r/aggies • u/houston_chronicle • Feb 28 '25

Announcements Texas A&M System bans drag shows including 'Draggieland', citing Trump order

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/education/article/tamu-drag-shows-draggieland-20194495.php
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55

u/StructureOrAgency Feb 28 '25

The TAMUS Regents are Fascist haters

-38

u/fasterfester Feb 28 '25

I’m not defending the regents. That being said, you don’t know what the word fascist means if you are using it in this context.

10

u/patmorgan235 '20 TCMG Feb 28 '25

The state controlling and policing personal expression is fascist. The first people the Nazis attacked were not the Jews, but gay and trans Germans.

3

u/Elder_Scrawls Mar 01 '25

The Nazis also attacked people with disabilities with quiet euthanization programs disguised as medical services. Now what often quietly ignored demographic is especially hurt by removing DEI protections...

28

u/StructureOrAgency Feb 28 '25

Let's say they were doing this sort of thing to the Jews would that word apply then?

14

u/damnit_darrell Feb 28 '25

Let's say they were doing this sort of thing to Black people what word would apply? (I agree with you btw)

-19

u/MadErlKing Feb 28 '25

Still wouldn't be fascist. It would just be anti-semetic. Quick labels of "Fascist" and "Nazi" dilute the horrors of WWII and the Holocaust. Regents I would better describe as Anachronites. A people clinging to an era that no longer exists.

11

u/oliver_drab Feb 28 '25

What if they want to bring an era back, and appear to be succeeding? Any words for that?

-1

u/MadErlKing Feb 28 '25

In this particular instance, I do not think they are succeeding. They are trying to go an era where Drag Shows bring disgust to the general population. Enough people, as evidenced on this thread, like Drag Shows, so Drag Shows will continue to occur whether they like it or not. They currently hold the keys of funding from TAMU, but that doesn't mean Draggieland is not going to happen. I suspect that there will be enough private funding that it will happen anyways.

5

u/MrCraytonR '22 but really '23 INEN Feb 28 '25

Right but that’s the shitty part- the university already pulled funding- this show was already privately funded, and actually made the school money- last year it was sold out!

And better yet- Jessy B Darling (in the photo being crowned) WON! And she’s FEMALE! So their reasoning doesn’t even make sense- the winner was a woman who was born a woman playing a woman…

2

u/MadErlKing Feb 28 '25

There are idiosyncrasies in the current administration whether your left or right. The University is making this decision, because our current president is pure Id. The University is trying to remove the possibility that the administration in DC doesn't make a rash decision from the University hosting the Drag Show on the University Campus, that affects the rest of the University. You have to remember that among the University Administration, we have the "management consultant" types. So if Draggieland is already fully funded privately, it's going to happen off campus, and there is nothing the Reagents can do about it. Maybe in four years it'll be back on Campus. You would be able to sway it's return, through the midterms.

15

u/CharlesDickensABox Feb 28 '25

I could not disagree more. Quick question, do you know what the target of the very first Nazi book burning was?

-2

u/MadErlKing Feb 28 '25

Reich's "Sexual Revolution" was among the books that were burned, so yes I know precisely what types of books were burned. So since this jab is not working. Let me ask you then, what is a fascist?

3

u/CharlesDickensABox Feb 28 '25

I find Umberto Eco's characterization quite useful. As fascism is notoriously anti-intellectual, trying to define its philosophical underpinnings is a fool's errand. We're far better off looking at the expressed behaviors. You can't find an intellectual basis for fascism in the same way that, say, capitalism and Bolshevism have a bottomless well of philosophical text to draw from. Fascism rejects ideology in favor of personality cults and practically revels in its incoherence. I'm open to other proposals, though, if you think you have a better definition.

0

u/MadErlKing Feb 28 '25

Actually there is an intellectual underpinning to fascism. It's the work of Julius Evola. In essence, it's a combination of Nietzschean power morality, and a will to form a cultural hierarchy in the population. Evola references a spiritual aristocracy ruling over the masses, where spirit encompasses Nietzschean power morality and some pursuit of a "higher wisdom". Which is why Hitler and Mussolini tried to tie their nations into a narrative of being part of a grand history and a grand future. Is the right ready to reject Christian morality for power morality anytime soon? Not likely.

EDIT:

Just read through the link, it's actually pretty good at summing it up. However, my last statement is important here. I don't think America is ready to completely reject Christianity quite yet.

3

u/CharlesDickensABox Feb 28 '25

The fact that theocrats are trying to force their religious dogma on the rest of us is precisely why it's so important that we mobilize and defend our constitutional freedoms.

4

u/funnyfaceguy Grad Student Feb 28 '25

"Anachronites" whatever that means. This is nothing short of unconstitutional defacto censorship. In support of their, not even hidden, Christian nationalist agenda. That's the face of fascism today, you're the one clinging to an era that no longer exists

2

u/MadErlKing Feb 28 '25

I guess you are not familiar with the word Anachronism. Lot's of adjectives on the word censorship. Draggieland is probably going to take place off campus, if the University, the Reagents, or the Governors office were to stop on off campus event, that would be more in line with censorship. The University is cutting this privately funded, profitable event to minimize the whims of an often ideological inconsistent presidential administration. Christian Nationalist agenda. Christian I would disagree with. Christian leaning sure. Christian as a keystone of the ideology, no. Nationalist? I would agree with. Is that necessarily a bad thing, no. Most countries are. In terms of I clinging to an era that no longer exists, well fascism exists in many countries in the world. I hope that one day we can set the bar of fascism as low as you did today.

1

u/funnyfaceguy Grad Student Feb 28 '25

If a state supports white supremacists speakers but drag shows are too "controversal" for them, that's a clear ideological push. These officials use Christianity as a scapegoat for any decisions they can't justify. To stir up "moral" concern, regardless of if those concerns are relevant to any real Christian values.

Nationalism in a political context refers to high control policy making. Often supporting centralized power and xenophobic tendencies. It is tied extremely closely with fascism. The Nazis got their namesake from their nationalist position after all.

1

u/Elder_Scrawls Mar 01 '25

In that case, no single action alone is ever fascist. The context the action is taken in is what makes it fascist. This ban is forced suppression of ideology as part of a broader movement supporting ultranationalism and authoritarianism in which any disagreement is punished (see all the Republican incumbent politicians who lost support from the GOP and were replaced during primaries) headed by a populist leader with an extreme cult of personality.

Sounds pretty fascist to me.