Whitman’s Homotextuality, Homopolitics, and Homonationalism 431 those recent critical theorizations of Whitman’s politics that have taken his homosexual dimension more seriously than others, despite the fact that they generally fail to distinguish between the open and hidden levels of signification in the textuality of Leaves as proposed here. For this purpose, we may well begin with George Kateb, as not only is he one of the earliest modern political theorists who directly tackles the homosexual aspect of Whitman’s politics, but his formulation has determined both the framework for, and the orientation of, many following theorizations.32 Praising Whitman as probably “the greatest” “philosopher of democracy” (1992: 240) based on his own conviction in democracy as what enables “rightsbased individualism” (241), Kateb significantly distinguishes between what he calls Whitman’s model of “adhesive love, or love of comrades” (259) and that of “sexual cruising—momentary intensities” (260).33 He prefers the latter model because the former “threatens to suffocate the very individualism of personality” as “one is dissolved in the ‘en masse’ rather than remaining connected to others as an equal” (259);34 in contrast, the poet’s “cruising” model is affirmed because it “does not betray his most radical individualism” (260) and also accords well with the liberal moral 32 The main bulk of Kateb’s ideas discussed here is taken from a chapter titled “Whitman and the Culture of Democracy,” which was originally published in 1990 as a journal article. 33 However, Kateb’s choice of phrasing is slightly confusing, for the term “adhesive” as used by Whitman is not necessarily associated with the exclusive and stable relationship of comrades. Hence for the sake of clarity, I will designate the two respectively as “love of comrades” and “love of strangers.” For a detailed listing and discussion of the term “adhesive/ness” in its various appearances in Whitman’s works, see Martin (1998: 33-47). 34 In a line of thinking that will concern us later, Kateb also warns that Whitman’s love of comrades “serves the sinister project of nationalism,” which is “too close to a conception of group identity, a shared pride in tribal attributes” (1992: 242). Kateb’s target of criticism here is actually Samuel Beer’s (1984) theorization of Whitman as devoted to “nation-centered purpose” (1992: 368), for this latter description fails to foreground what Kateb regards as Whitman’s “real novelty,” i.e., non-identarian love (164).
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