Thanks for the write-up. Every time I look at reenactors, it gives me the willies -- does something just come over you, forcing you to wear wool in August and spend time worrying about military minutia? Do you get any warning? Or a choice? Slightly terrifying, but glad you got a beer & burger in the end.
I find it weird too. I spoke at the "Mullan Road Conference 2022" this past weekend, and there were a couple dudes in period costumes from the 1860s. It feels awkward.
Maybe I'll ask the next batch of people why they like it so much. I mean, it's not like it's any worse to be an affluent white man these days. The law still isn't applied equally. You can roam the woods and whatnot, except we have First Aid kits and medevac now. And polyester.
It's less weird when it's like a thing people are doing together. I just find it awkward conversing with a guy who is the only one in the room in ill-fitting buckskins.
I'm reading a great piece by Eula Biss in the NYer called "The Theft of the Commons," in which she writes: "White-nationalist movements are animated by what the writer Zadie Smith calls “a radical desire for time travel.” Whereas personal nostalgia peoples the mind with real memories, political nostalgia often travels back to a time that is as unreal as time travel itself. In this past, white people imagine themselves free from competing claims to land and property, to rights and recourses. This is a past in which we had no obligation to other people. Such a past never existed, but that sort of freedom remains an enduring fantasy."
That's why I call them cosplayers. It's the same thing as dressing like Sailor Moon because you like it. There's nothing wrong with either, but I'm not going to elevate reenactors beyond fandom.
Thanks for the write-up. Every time I look at reenactors, it gives me the willies -- does something just come over you, forcing you to wear wool in August and spend time worrying about military minutia? Do you get any warning? Or a choice? Slightly terrifying, but glad you got a beer & burger in the end.
I find it weird too. I spoke at the "Mullan Road Conference 2022" this past weekend, and there were a couple dudes in period costumes from the 1860s. It feels awkward.
Maybe I'll ask the next batch of people why they like it so much. I mean, it's not like it's any worse to be an affluent white man these days. The law still isn't applied equally. You can roam the woods and whatnot, except we have First Aid kits and medevac now. And polyester.
It's less weird when it's like a thing people are doing together. I just find it awkward conversing with a guy who is the only one in the room in ill-fitting buckskins.
I'm reading a great piece by Eula Biss in the NYer called "The Theft of the Commons," in which she writes: "White-nationalist movements are animated by what the writer Zadie Smith calls “a radical desire for time travel.” Whereas personal nostalgia peoples the mind with real memories, political nostalgia often travels back to a time that is as unreal as time travel itself. In this past, white people imagine themselves free from competing claims to land and property, to rights and recourses. This is a past in which we had no obligation to other people. Such a past never existed, but that sort of freedom remains an enduring fantasy."
My friend Antonia told me about this but I haven't read it yet.
That's why I call them cosplayers. It's the same thing as dressing like Sailor Moon because you like it. There's nothing wrong with either, but I'm not going to elevate reenactors beyond fandom.