21: Faith and Propaganda

Introduction: Bad Subjects, Bad Faith

Annalee Newitz, Matt Wray
Why talk about faith? Why propaganda? And why together? What possible connections do these notions evoke? At Bad Subjects, we feel the time has come for those on the Left to take another look at these two ideas and practices, one an ancient form of belief, the other a modern 20th century invention.

Bad Tourist Gets Well: Fancy Fish Food or Miracle Cure?

Ron Alcalay
Those first moments in the water convinced me that this would be no ordinary treatment.

Burning Man and the Rituals of Capitalism

Matt Wray
In the Festival of the Burning Man, Black Rock Desert, Nevada, 2,500 hardy souls trekked out into the middle of the largest flat expanse of land in North America to experiment with community.

'Viral Chic': Propaganda of Health Care in the United States

Jillian Sandell
It is not only the "real-life" epidemics of Ebola in Zaire earlier this year, or of Hanta in the United States in 1993, that have raised awareness about the threat of deadly viruses. Indeed, as anyone with even a passing familiarity with popular culture cannot fail to have noticed, the United States is currently experiencing what one journalist calls an "epidemic of viral entertainment."

Taking Drugs, or Shopping at the Black Market

Annalee Newitz
There are two basic kinds of stories you hear about drugs: how it feels to take various drugs, and getting busted.

Belief and the Left

Charlie Bertsch
If we leftists are asked what we believe in, what do we say?

The Covenant, The Sword and The Arm of The Lord

Joel Schalit
A vigorous Christian right alleges that it has entered politics to emancipate itself from discrimination by the welfare state and its intolerant ideology of secularism.

A Saint Without God

Steven Rubio
Chain letters are interesting, if scummy, examples of what might happen to us if we let faith overrule other sides of our character.

Love and Denial: The Bridges of Madison County and Other Romances With Ideology

Ed Korthof
Diane Ackerman is heavily invested in understanding love as something separate from the material and social reality in which it occurs. But...

Voices from the Collective: Rape

This thread began with a series of exchanges on the Bad Subjects email list about gender roles and how they create social expectations about human behavior, especially sexual behavior. These two emails were written in response to the suggestion that rape is a sexual act as well as a violent one, and that traditional gender roles help to create siutations which foster sexual violence.