It gets better ... all in good time: messianic rhetoric and a political theology of social control

Abstract

Working from Walter Benjamin’s “On the Concept of History,” this essay examines the recent interest in the messianic and messianicity in continental philosophy. To ground its discussion, the essay analyzes two recent cultural examples of messianic rhetoric – Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns and Dan Savage’s 2010 It Gets Better Project, in order to explore hidden theological dimensions of recent cultural and political discourse in the US. The essay argues that both examples showcase a reliance on the language of the messianic promise as a means of creating a docile public focused on imagined future liberation rather than a critical confrontation of the often violent and disturbing realities of the now. At the same time that the essay problematizes messianic rhetoric’s connection to deeply entrenched narratives of “progress,” the essay also works to posit alternative visions of the messianic and to question whether it is possible to redefine the concept of messianism without relying on a narrative of progress which is outdated, irresponsible, and likely violent. In the end, the essay explores how the language of queer theory, with its resistance to traditional logics of future-oriented (re)production, might provide a useful vocabulary for such a reimagining of the messianic.

Keywords:

• Benjamin
• It Gets Better
• messianic
• Obama
• queer

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.