The Dissenter

#715 Lee Edelman - No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive

4 snips
Dec 9, 2022
Lee Edelman, Fletcher Professor of English at Tufts and leading queer theory thinker, guides a brisk tour of No Future. He maps how the symbolic Child shapes politics, outlines reproductive futurism, and treats queerness as a disruptive figure. Conversations touch on sinthomosexuality, anti‑abortion and anti‑homosexual movements, and tensions between life, death, and political meaning.
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INSIGHT

Everyone Claims To Fight For The Children

  • Nearly all political factions claim to 'fight for the children' because the Child symbolizes the polity's continuity.
  • This produces policies that sacrifice living children to an abstract ideal of a reproductive, normative future.
ANECDOTE

Example Of Competing Child Rhetorics Around Trans Youth

  • Edelman contrasts Alabama bans on trans youth care with left arguments for support to show both sides claim the Child.
  • He notes bans harm trans children's mental health while defenders argue resources are needed for survival.
INSIGHT

The Child Is A Perpetual Horizon

  • The Child is an endlessly postponed political end, always portrayed as under new threat.
  • Perpetual threat justifies continual political intervention and never completes the polity's promised future.
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