Alexander Kondakov - Criminalizing Queer People (And Do Politicians Prime Violence?)

In 2013, Russia adopted a federal law criminalizing the distribution to children of any material that depicts any non-traditional sexual relationships as normal and positive. Despite the language, this was targeting how queer folks and queer relationships are portrayed in Russia. Since then, anti-gay violence and anti-gay hate crimes have grown exponentially. And, as I speak, an update to that law – referred to as the gay propaganda law – is working its way through the Duma (or the Russian Parliament) extending that criminalization to any positive depiction of queer folks or queer relationships to anyone in Russia. Essentially, it will become illegal to promote or praise homosexuality or non-traditional sexual relationships in any form. 

Today, I’m talking to Dr. Alexander Kondakov – a sociologist and assistant professor in the School of Sociology at University College Dublin in Ireland. His work has focused on law and sexuality studies – specifically queer sexualities. His work appears in numerous journals and recently he published the book Violent Affections: Queer Sexuality, Techniques of Power, and Law in Russia. This book takes a sociological approach to violence committed against the queer community and queer folks, or folks perceived to be queer, to help us understand how the crafting, implementation, and enforcement of law and policy can prime potential perpetrators of violence, and how feelings of anger and insecurity can manifest in violence against the queer community. This book takes a microscope to incidents of violence against queer people in Russia, discussing them in extremely vivid detail. But there’s a reason for that, which we discuss. 

We also talk about how easy it is to transform feelings of disenfranchisement, powerlessness, and loss into hate – how politicians have leveraged it, how incidents of violence, especially hate-motivated violence, can be linked to violent rhetoric on the part of politicians and other elites, and how violence is almost exclusively a male problem. 

Mentioned:
The Banshees of Inisherin

Recommended:
Violent Affections: Queer Sexuality, Techniques of Power, and Law in Russia - Alexander Kondakov

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Transcript

Dr. Alexander Kondakov - Criminalizing Queer People (and Do Politicians Prime Violence?)

Alexander: [00:00:00] Academic scientific research proves that if politicians use bigotry and hatred disseminated online, offline, in their speech, act in their legislation proposals if they use hatred. In order to pursue their political goals, it actually has much larger impact on, on a society than they think it has. Or maybe they know about these effects and those ethics actually are very clear.

So in my research of the gay propaganda law, I link the adoption of this law and all the discussions that the law. The heated and hateful discussions that the law provoked to very clear cut rise of violence after 2013 when the law was introduced. So it's, it's the rise of violence against L G B T Q Plus people in Russia.

Shawn: Welcome to Deep Dive with me, Shawn c [00:01:00] Fettig. In 2013, Russia adopted a federal law criminalizing the distribution to children of any material that depicts any non-traditional sexual relationships as normal and positive. Despite the language, this was targeting how queer folks and queer relationships are portrayed in Russia.

Since then, anti-gay violence and anti-gay hate crimes have grown exponentially, and as I speak, an update to that law referred to as the propaganda. Is working its way through the Duma or the Russian Parliament, extending that criminalization to any positive depiction of queer folks or queer relationships to anyone in Russia.

Essentially, it will become illegal to promote or praise homosexuality or non-traditional sexual relationships in any form. I visited Russia in 2015, just a couple of years after the passage of the initial version of the propaganda. Some of the people I was hanging out with were [00:02:00] queer folks, and there was a striking difference in how they carried themselves, presented themselves, talked amongst each other, engaged with each other.

Then I was familiar with how queer folks behaved in the United States. Of course, queer people are protective and adept at coding out of necessity in the United States, but what I experienced in Russia was next level, clearly a collective sociological response to oppression, and it made me apprehensive and anxious about how I was being perceived.

I didn't want anyone, especially any man to touch me, even non romantically for fear that it might trigger some violent reaction from the well-armed police patrolling the streets or even the general public. I thought Russia was fascinating, full of history, very beautiful and quite proud, but I was happy to leave because I was on my guard the entire time, and I've had a hard time shaking this.

The knowledge of actually having experienced the contrast in daily life for people between the places that accept differences [00:03:00] across and within its communities and places that. Places that criminalize abuse, violate the integrity of human experience in human bodies that are different from dominant society.

And I never wanna feel that paranoia, that fear, that anxiety that comes from living in that latter oppressive society. But I can't ignore the fact that we in the United States are also experiencing some kind of renaissance of anti-gay legislation, rhetoric and violence. And I wanna understand not just what this looks like in places that outright criminalize queer people, but also how laws such as these, the propaganda law in Russia and laws like the don't say gay bill in Florida.

And the proponents of these laws empower violence against non-traditional people and the impact that it has on victims, perpetrators, and society as a whole. So today I'm talking to Dr. Alexander Kondakov, a sociologist and assistant professor in the School of Sociology at University College [00:04:00] Dublin in Ireland.

His work is focused on law and sexuality studies, specifically queer sexualities, and his work appears in numerous journals. In recently, he published the book, violent Affections, queer Sexuality, techniques of Power and Law In. This book takes a sociological approach to violence committed against the queer community and queer folks or folks perceived to be queer.

To help us understand how the crafting, implementation, and enforcement of law and policy can prime potential perpetrators of violence, and how feelings of anger and insecurity can manifest in violence against the queer community. This book takes a microscope to incidents of violence against queer people in Russia, discussing them in extremely vivid detail.

But there's a reason for that, which we discuss. We also talk about how easy it is to transform feelings of disenfranchisement, powerlessness, and loss into hate, how politicians have leveraged it, how incidents of violence, especially hate motivated [00:05:00] violence, can be linked to violence. Rhetoric on the part of politicians and other elites, and how violence is almost exclusively a male problem.

If you like this episode or any episode, please feel free to give it a like on your favorite podcast platform and or subscribe to the podcast on YouTube. And as always, if you have any thoughts, questions, or comments, please feel free to email me at deep dive with Shawn gmail.com. Let's 

Alexander: do a deep dive.

Shawn: Dr. Kondakov, thanks for being here. How are 

Alexander: you? I'm good. Thank you. I am good as well. 

Shawn: Thanks. So you're an expert on queer rights generally, but also, you know, maybe specifically those same rights or maybe it's, it's better to characterize it or as lack thereof in Russia and I think it's a massive understatement to say that a lot of, you know, interesting and also kind of chilling things are happening in Russia and because of Russia these days.

And I'm hoping we could dig a bit into some of that today. , let's start with some context. And a lot of [00:06:00] people might assume that queer rights in Russia have always been difficult or have been non-existent. And to some degree that might be true, but it's also true that Putin has taken direct aim at the queer community in the past decade or so.

And so this situation is actually deteriorating. So I guess, could you help me understand the evolution and also the current state of queer life 

Alexander: in Russia? Yeah, well, it's not so much an evolution or a state development, you know, it's going backwards and forward and, and, and from there to here, sideways and, and so on and so forth.

Russia and, you know, all those different. Countries that were formed around its current territory have been very different and, and have some kind of convoluted history of queerness of queer rights, of regulation of sexuality more generally. If you remember for example the 1920s at the dawn of the Soviet Union, there were a [00:07:00] couple of same sex marriages recognized there.

Sort of avert, but also a little bit covered policy of L G B T or queer rights recognition. But also in the 1930s criminalization of same sex intercourse happened or re criminalization because it was actually criminalized. Before the US s r or the Socialist Revolution. So you see, it's, it's not always a, a sort of evolution, but in, in terms of contemporary Russia, what is known as the Russian Federation in 1993, so right after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Same sex intercourse, which was criminalized in the Soviet Union, was decriminalized there. And then nothing really happened in terms of law for a couple of decades until exactly, actually 20 years later when in 2013, Propaganda law marked kind of turn away from [00:08:00] any sort of improvement or evolution and into what we experience now.

There kind of a sad state of L G B T rights in Russia 

Shawn: as we speak. There is new legislation that's kind of working its way through the duo, which is essentially the Russian legislature. Can you explain what this 

Alexander: bill. Yeah, so in 2013, Duma, the Russian Parliament adopted this law, which is commonly referred to as gay propaganda, right?

So it's censorship legislation and it prohibits to speaking positive or. Even neutral light about L G B T issues to minors, right. So currently this law is being how should I put it developed, I guess. So that general ban on L G B T issues, topics. Is about to be introduced. So it's not only about access of minors to this kind of [00:09:00] information, but it's about access of anyone to information on L G B T Q plus issues.

Right? Well, officially it's called actually the ban of propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships, right? And this non-traditional sexual relationships may include a lot of. Besides they want to somehow associate L G B T queer sexualities with pedophilia. So pedophilia is added to this law, to this cen censorship law that is being discussed currently, and the punishments are about to be enhanced as well.

So this is the the reforms that are being introduced to, to the state Duma and the, the new bill already. The first reading, and usually there are three readings. 

Shawn: You know what I find particularly chilling about a law like this, and it's not unique to Russia. We're seeing some of the same things happening in the United States.

Florida comes to mind [00:10:00] what's called the don't say gay bill is they are so vague when you try to imagine how any average citizen could really delineate or or identify what exactly is outlawed and what is not, which leaves it essentially to the discretion of enforce. Officers. Right. So it's at the discretion of police or at the discretion of prosecutors to determine if somebody has violated a law.

And I think what's kind of chilling here, and this is something that you've talked about in some of your work, is that discretion at the enforcement level means that often people that have committed a crime against queer folks are not prosecuted. I'm wondering. If you could maybe talk a little bit about the problem of discretion.

You 

Alexander: know, I must say from the very beginning, I don't think that this law, this piece of legislation is introduced in order to be actually enforced and implemented. You know, I think [00:11:00] it's kind of speech act of the government of politicians more generally. To just put it out there and say there's a, there's a group, there's a specific community, queer L G B T community.

That is inappropriate to talk about. It's, it's inappropriate to talk about this group in public. There is something wrong with it. So that message is what they want to put out there in the world. Now they do it with the means of law. So they use law in order to produce that utterance in order to to, to produce that speech act.

Right? Because. More powerful if it is law, but since it's produced as a piece of legislation, now it has to be. By law enforcement agencies, the police whoever controls the law, right? And so there is a lot of practice going on around it. I mean, it's not necessarily so because the gay propaganda law, for example, [00:12:00] was first introduced in Britain as first, as I understand, right?

Somewhere in, in the 1980s when Margaret, that. Government introduced Section 28, I think they called it, and it was essentially a, a gay propaganda legislation that instructed public officials, especially in schools to never mention anything gay, to never cover L G B T q plus topics, right? But as far as I understand from the research, it wasn't enforced and, and, and nobody actually control.

As far as I understand right, it, it hasn't been enforced since then. And I, I think they, they withdrew it in, in, in the beginning of 2000. So there is not necessarily that connection, but definitely in Russia, the law. Is being enforced. It is implemented. It's not only a a speech act of the government, but it's also something that police and prosecutors and judges [00:13:00] across Russia do.

Right. And of course there's a, a huge range of practices that can be covered, but by something you call non-traditional sexual relationships or propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships. It's not designed this, this term, if it's a legal term, it's not designed. To be clear and to be absolutely easily identifiable what the non-traditional sexual relationships is.

But it's definitely something related to to L G B T issues as it, it is now understood in, in, in the Russian discourse. But the truth is, you know, even before this legislation was introduced in Russia, some law enforcement agencies thought that it wasn't appropriate to talk about. Something homosexual, something gay in public, and they kind of enforced their own censorship ideals even without the law which was only introduced in 2013.

So, you know there is always that power of discretion in the [00:14:00] hands of law enforcement officers when it comes to, to censorship and it, it had been there in Russia even before the legislation. Now it. Covers, well, everything from public rally, for example, an L G B T Pride parade is impossible in Russia.

It's not that it was possible before, but there were attempts. I haven't participated in a few, but now it's officially banned. Or if you want to write a, a, an article or an in interview with a, with a gay person and, and publish it in, in a newspaper in Russia Journal even online newspaper, right? Again, it's impossible.

It will be considered propaganda. Or if you want to disseminate a leaflet flat about some kind of psychological support to LGBTQ kids, for example, that will. Again a violation of the gay propaganda law. Unless you, you were caught with the police enforcement, that will be very clear. So [00:15:00] I guess it covers all that.

And moreover, in the cases of implementation of the gay propaganda law in in courts cross Russia, which I reviewed, there is no need to prove that any minor. Who is protected by the law actually accessed this information. So it's just enough if the information is available out there and potentially some kind of imaginary minor can access it by simply Googling stuff, right?

So these are the kinds of things that covered and, and it introduces a very special environment. You know, when people who. Unclear what is prohibited and what is not. Start to consider whether or not they, they want to talk about something gay, whether or not they want to talk about non-traditional sexual relationships.

And many people say no, you know, especially if we are talking about settings such as schools, for example. You can [00:16:00] imagine that, you know, teachers may cover, for example, L G B T rights in a session on human rights or, or political participation of l LGBT citizens, for example, right in, in certain classes or if they want to cover a variety of human sexualities.

They will not do that starting from 2013. They wouldn't ever do this kind of stuff in, in Russia. This will be where they think it will be considered propaganda and the prosecutor's office will open a case against them. This is more or less how the law works. It definitely impacts on the work of L G B T community organiz.

NGOs, individual activists, they are also part of, of this anti propaganda effort. 

Shawn: There are a lot of intents of law and legislation, but related to laws like this, two seem pretty clear. One is to [00:17:00] criminalize people or a behavior in such a way that you can and do enforce that. And another is to signal to the citizenry or the population, what is considered to be appropriate behavior, what norms are, and shame people into behaving a certain.

And I'm wondering, is it fair to say that you conceptualize this law as being more about government signaling than it is about pure enforcement? Yeah, 

Alexander: because there is no gay propaganda in, in this world. There is no propaganda, non-traditional sexual relationships. Whatever is covered by the law in law enforcement practices is not a real issue.

Right. If you want to call it censorship legislation, then yeah. Try to do exactly that. As a government or as a legislator. Will tell me clearly that. For some reasons and probably provide some kind of scientific basis to your argument for some reasons. You believe that [00:18:00] if l g LGBT topics are covered in media, are covered in schools are if L G B LGBT people can organize public rallies on the streets.

Then there's some kind of harm to the society. Yeah, you can prove it with data and if that data exists and arrange or, or adopt a A law accordingly, a piece of legislation. That eliminates such harm. But since this thing isn't real, the gay propaganda propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships actually doesn't exist.

Yeah. They cannot present any evidence to the world, and instead the whole issue becomes empty. It's nothing, it's, it's, it's not about anything at all. That means that actually people are not interested in remedying society from some. Harm that they think exist there. Actually, they use this law. For [00:19:00] different reasons.

What could be those reasons? Well, I guess it's something of, I dunno, political legitimization for example, of power through producing this kind of hateful material for affiliation of certain groups in society. And amassing their votes or kind of other forms of support, right? For the politicians who use these kind of utterances, who use this kind of legislation, To pursue their goals.

If you look at it from this perspective, you, you see that probably there is nothing else in this legislation, but some kind of political instrumentalization of homophobia rather than addressing a real existing issue in a society.

I think 

Shawn: it would be easy for us to take this legislation. Then in the vein, as you've kind of described it as being primarily about government signaling and not so much about enforcing some existing behavior [00:20:00] and assume then that that means it's relatively benign, but actually in your work you do draw like a clear line.

I would characterize it as a causal connection between things like this, this government signaling about norms and behavior and accepted lifestyles, and then people deciding to commit violence against those targeted communities, and that includes murder. That in the same case, could be made for this in the United States as well.

You know, just a couple of nights ago we had another mass shooting in the United States, and it was at a queer night. , and this comes after a couple years of Republicans taking direct aim at the queer community. So I guess I'm wondering, what do you make of politicians or anybody that dismisses this connection between government signaling and then violence committed against the outgroup as a ridiculous kind of assertion?

Alexander: Yeah, well, data shows my research, but not only my research. Academic scientific research proves that if politicians use bigotry and [00:21:00] hatred disseminated online, offline, in their speech acts, in their legislation proposals if they use hatred. In order to pursue their political goals, it actually has much larger impact on, on a society than they think it has.

Or maybe they know about these ethics and those ethics actually are very clear. So in my research of the gay propaganda law, I link the adoption of this law and all the discussions that the law . All the heated and hateful discussions that the law provoked to very clear cut rise of violence after 2013 when the law was introduced.

So it's, it's the rise of violence against L G B T q plus people in Russia, right? If, if in 2012 the level of violence. Was around 30 cases of injuries and, and, and murders in the most kind of conservative [00:22:00] estimates. Then by 2015, this number is twice as much, right? Twice as many lives ha ha have been, have been lost.

And that's, that's a direct result of this loss. So no hatred. No spread of this terrible and harming information goes unnoticed. Some people react to these messages and some people take weapon in their hands in order to act upon these messages. And this is a direct link. There is a direct link between the spread of, of hate and people being targeted and killed.

Shawn: I've known quite a few people that have left Russia in the past year for, you know, a variety of reasons. Obviously the mobilization effort and the economic situation or, or its outlook plays into that. But in the last couple of months, I've known a handful of queer folks that are leaving because of the increased threat to their safety and.

I don't know. Also, because I just mentioned, you know, the war in Ukraine and the [00:23:00] economic prospect, how much we can, you know evaluate these things in a vacuum or separately. But I, I guess I do wonder, given the deteriorating condition for queer folks in Russia, what is future life the near future life look like for queer folks in Russia?

What is this doing to 

Alexander: Russia? Yeah, those are very good questions. But of course, I mean, I have no real answers to them. The future for like on the individual level for, for Queer Fox and on a more collective, like general level for, for the entire Russia, for me at the moment, this future looks for agreement.

Very sad, and it's, it's not only be because there's a lot of homophobia and terrible. Policies in, in in the sexuality domain that, that the government has done. But of course, the war on Ukraine informs this future very much so. I mean, a lot of, a lot of people, as you say, simply left [00:24:00] Russia because this year, right, because of being afraid to be sent on the front line because.

Being afraid to be sent to prisons and, and, and detention camps all around the country because of their resistance to governmental decisions, and not only because of their sexuality, but also because they're scapegoated and stigmatized. For the sexuality and other social characteristics that the government doesn't like.

So yeah, this, this all doesn't work very well for the for the country. Can I ask you 

Shawn: a personal question about Sure. Would you be comfortable going back to Russia even to visit? 

Alexander: Well, at the moment I'm not comfortable going back to Russia, but for a very specific reason. You know, it's, it's for the threat of mobilization, right?

I'm a, I'm a young male. Citizen of Russian. I don't wanna be[00:25:00] mobilized to, to the Russian Army at the moment for a very clear reason. I don't wanna kill anybody, . I don't want to participate in this genocidal war to be sure. But even before that, I, I mean, I haven't been. To Russia for several years.

And, and I wouldn't be scared to go there because of being gay, right? Because I a specialist in this topic. But also, and it doesn't give me any protection, surely. But I think I knew how to navigate everyday reality. I knew the dangers. I read hundreds of cases of antique violence, and I saw how perpetrators of that violence recruit their victims.

And I would definitely stay away from, from the violent places in, in which those, those crimes occurred in my sample. But it's definitely, it, it has been a dangerous [00:26:00] place for L G B T folks who. Lived there who had that everydayness literally every day and couldn't escape anywhere. I, on the other hand, would only go there to visit.

And in this sense I had some kind of extra protection of being part of other world communities, not only of Russia. , you 

Shawn: mentioned reading hundreds of cases of anti-gay violence. You compiled a lot of those stories into your book, violent Affections. Yeah. Before we talk about the book itself, there is one thing that struck me in reading it that I really appreciated, but I also could imagine that some people would have a hard time with you very clearly and deliberately choose to tell these stories of anti-gay violence in kind of vivid graphic detail.

And I know a lot of folks, people in my own life that have a difficult time with these types of things. They look for ways to actively [00:27:00] avoid ingesting information like this or seeing stories like this. And I, I agree with you that bearing wetness is kind of an essential component of building compassion.

But I do wonder if you've gotten any negative feedback for telling the stories this way, or what has the 

Alexander: feedback. Yeah, well, you remember the book starts actually with a trigger warning. Mm-hmm. , it's a fair way to Yeah. To alert people that actually this, this conversation is about violence and there is going to be a lot of violence kind of mediated by me, by text that is written by all this process of publication.

It's it's still, it's still violence. And I thought that yes, it's not an easy material to to be exposed to, but but somehow I think it's necessary to have spaces. Where we are exposed [00:28:00] to violence and probably academic discourse. An academic book is one of those spaces where we are exposed to violence safely because it's still a conversation about something more than just graphic depiction of violent interactions.

It's, it's something that we analyze and make of it with their. That those kinds of incidents become less frequent. But so far the book is just, just out. Literally. It's it's been just a few months and so far I didn't have any negative or positive feedback especially in relation to this per particular topic.

But I had previously presentations. From this research, even before the book was published. And, and every time I didn't put there a trigger warning that the discussion will be about violence and I will quote cases of violence from court rulings. Every time I, [00:29:00] I, I, I forgot to put that trigger warning.

There were people in the audience who were upset and I sincerely sorry and apologize for that, but that's part of the job, unfortunately. Right. 

Shawn: So there's something that I've noticed being a queer person, and I guess I assumed to some degree this must apply to other non-dominant groups. And I wonder if you've experienced this, which.

I think there's a level of kind of compassion that we can all bring to reading other people's stories or seeing other people's stories that are particularly tragic or sad or violent. There's a level or a bar that we can all meet. I think these things land differently for me when I'm reading about violence against like the queer community, because I am a queer person, right?

Mm-hmm. , there's something that I bring to that space that I think people that aren't queer don't quite underst. . I guess I've got two questions here. I wonder if this says something about just [00:30:00] dominant society's ability to really even break through and fully understand what this does to communities because they will never be in the position themselves.

But then the other question is, you kind of live this, so I'm wondering what kind of a toll, if at all this takes on you or how you are able to kind of perhaps even build a barrier to do this academically without internalizing. 

Alexander: Those are very good questions and, and as all this, it's hard to actually self-analyze sometimes what that thing does to you and, and, and where you are.

As an analytic, but also as a person believing through this, this kind of material, this kind of violence. And again, I'm, I'm also a queer person. I'm, I'm a gay man and I'm exposed to all those cases or, or being exposed to all those cases as a gay man. Did something quite traumatic to, to me as, as a person, as an [00:31:00] individual.

But I think the, the way to approach this and, and, and try to establish a barrier between that material and myself was actually the academic professionalism, the lens of analytical tools and instruments and theories that, that I appli. It allowed for certain level of abstraction from, from those cases of violence.

Even though I can tell you actually that, you know, I, I cried over many of them because reading over and over all those tragic stories, Is traumatizing, especially if you have to do it not in a few selected moments, but if you have to go through literally hundreds of documents with those tragic stories mm-hmm.

So yeah, it's it, it does something to you, but that the, the job of professional analytic somehow helps to cope a a little. and I would be hypocrite to say [00:32:00] that you know, this kind of work is worse or, or, I don't know, can, can harm more than a lot of other cases of mediated violence that we are exposed to every day.

You know, we watch criminal stories. Mm-hmm. sometimes they're based on true histories of people who actually live there. We read criminal nobles. We Read news in, in the newspapers about crime. And many of those things many of those products are much, much more graphic than than my academic book, especially if we are talking about.

You know film and, and, and TV overwhelmed with, with, with violence and the ways violence is depicted there is is hundreds of times much more graphic than, than anything I can produce. So violence is, is around us anyway, in, in, in all those forms. And I, I think what, what I do [00:33:00] as a sociologist, as a an academic.

I try to offer that mechanism of protection from violence that are used in my personal case. So I offer that abstraction, that theoretical obstruction and, and analysis of, of the phenomenon of violence in, in the book and, and in my work more, more generally, you know? Mm-hmm. and if. If that is something that can be instrumentalized by by other people, that's already great.

But I hope for a larger impact. You know, I, I hope that if we understand violence, if we know. How it works. If we analytically dismantle the mechanisms that enact violence, maybe actually there is a chance we can better control it. We can as society, as humanity even, you know, and, and that's, that's an ambition that [00:34:00] underlines the whole, the whole project actually.

Shawn: And perhaps this is because you are an academic and you approach this through an academic lens, but I think when these types of crimes happen, we immediately jump to characterizing them as hate crimes, right? That's the language we use, which lends itself to a narrative that these are all hate based crimes.

And I think you kind of thread a needle, not just in violent affections, but in some of your other work as well, and make the argument. These perpetrators of some of these types of violence are not necessarily always driven by hatred, but that rather, there's a variety of emotions that guide their actions.

And I think this is subtle, but a very important distinction because what I think we often do is we have these catchphrases and we bumper sticker violence against out communities. Here we're talking about queer c. as being simply hate motivated. But you make the argument that some motivation [00:35:00] for these types of crimes is much more internal to, you know, the perpetrator.

And it's much more intertwined with their own emotions. And I think the obvious one that jumps to mind is insecurity, right? Mm. And this is not, you know, I suppose to mitigate it in any way, but, and you argue that understanding the difference helps us to also understand how to address these issues when they manifest in violence.

And I guess the question, How do we address this kind of behavior? That to me seems like almost exclusively a male problem of violence. What thoughts do you have? Yeah, exactly. 

Alexander: You, you are absolutely right here. I, I think hate crime or hate more generally is some kind of framework that we are offered to understand these kinds of violent in interactions, but the world is so much, much more complex and.

Fluid and complicated, especially currently, that all those doctrines cannot really capture what's really going on and then therefore addressing your [00:36:00] question. Actually, we need to. Create new kind of innovative ways of thinking about what do we do about it? Do we still rely on criminal justice system and the doctrine of hate crime in these kinds of cases, the cases of targeted violence, for example.

Or do we work with the societies somehow differently? In order to make sure that those crimes do not exist. Like for example, I think we started this conversation with it. If we know that the spread of hate through political Tribunes through legislative mechanisms, but not only through just political speech more generally generates more violence against certain populations, then probably we should start arguing that we don't.

Hate crime legislation, but we need legislation or means of political socialization that make sure that that politicians don't use hateful rhetoric [00:37:00] in, in their speech acts that they AMAs support. On other platforms that they think that it's inappropriate to actually trigger people's emotions because some of those people may respond with actual violence, right?

So maybe that's an approach to take or maybe we should think of making sure that people are not. Led easily into these kind instances of political manipulations. Maybe we should think of reform of public education where education more generally, that is based on critical scales that students at school and colleges know how to distinguish.

Bullshit from, from true. And, and, and therefore do not react with violence on attempts to, to trigger the, the, the worst of their, of their emotions. Or maybe we should as you said, work with [00:38:00] masculinity. Role models and offer barriers so that people didn't think that they are masculinity threatened by a simple approximation of, of gay man, you know?

And, and that will help in, in one or, or two cases and, and, and they will be less violence in the world. So if we think, you know, more creatively, I, I'm just layering out a few possible venues where to go beyond hate crime legislation. But if we think in those directions, I guess we can. More effective even solutions to violence of the kind that, that I'm talking about in the book, in looking at it 

Shawn: through that lens, right?

And seeing these as. Intertwined, but separate. And that is deeply pathological social problems related to violence and expressions of emotion, particularly negative expressions of emotion. And then that manifesting in specific violence against targeted communities. And here we're talking about like the queer community.

That these laws that we're seeing in Florida and the United [00:39:00] States and in Texas, but also in a handful of other countries, including Russia, that create outgroups of certain people like the queer community. What they're also doing is creating targets for people that otherwise can't manage their emotions, and so they're putting a target on the back of certain people.

If you can't manage your anger, and some of this might be hate motivated, but some of it might be, here are the people you can hate, or here are the people that you can cause harm to because they are the outgroup. 

Alexander: Yeah. Or, or, you know sorry if I interrupt you. Maybe those people already feel something, some kind of disenfranchisement, but now some politicians turn that disenfranchisement turn, that feeling of, of loss and powerless.

Into hate. So, you know, hate comes second or something we call hate. You know, it's actually not necessarily about hatred, but there is some [00:40:00] kind of initial feeling of losing ground. And then that feeling is being exploited by channeling violence onto certain populations, you know? 

Shawn: I think at it's most stark and argument could be made here that the world is splitting on these social lines.

And the old kind of paradigm has been, you know, one of, you know the world is a battle between democracy and authoritarianism. And prior to that it was like democracy and communism, but that instead maybe we're. Moving or evolving into a world that splits along social lines. And I'm wondering, one, do you agree that it's possible that this could actually be kind of a clear demarcation line between emerging ideologies and relationships in the, in what way?

I guess would be a new global order, and then is Putin staking out a position as perhaps a leader on a more illiberal side? And then what does that world look like? 

Alexander: Hmm. I think what's, what's happening, I, I, I kind of agree, but I [00:41:00] would put it this way. You know, there's this idea of performativity in social science, and so this kind of political affiliation and democracy and authoritarians, they, they are actually performative.

They become practices. So currently Putin definitely acts as an authoritarian. Leader and he wants other countries to join his cause. And probably he's not very good at amassing support on the world arena. But before the war, he was relatively fine actually in mm-hmm. in doing what he did. And so some countries.

Would do actions like oppose L G B T rights agenda for example. And this would signify that they are against the liberal world and they are for this more authoritarian agenda, right? But that position shifts and, and, and changes and is, is kind of fluid, you know? And, and, and Trump's [00:42:00] presidency definitely signaled that possibility of change even in liberal democracies.

And then that fluidity of political affiliation and institutionalization in liberal democracies too. So Russia probably was never a, a democracy, but it acted. One in certain points of its recent history and is currently not acting as one. And by not acting as one, it definitely appears as an autocracy.

Now the question is how how other countries, how other governments act on the global arena and therefore how they appear currently. You may see some kind of clear cut divisions between those countries, but again, it's not that tomorrow it will be the same because of this, this performative character of this whole process.

But moreover, the thing is even more complicated. We tend to look at states and countries as governments, but actually who acts in [00:43:00] this and that or, or, or that way. Sometimes it's, it's more elusive, this homophobia, for example, worldwide homophobia, if you look at the actors on the international arena, they can be affiliated with different countries, like a lot of evangelical churches and the Russian government Act together to counteract L G B T rights on the world arena.

Right. And, and what is it, it's, is it the US that is represented by those evangelical churches and the world Congress and families and, and these kinds of organiz. Or, or, or it is just that private business, but also Russia, sometimes it doesn't act as, as the government, but also acts through these conservative NGOs and, and, and movements or even, you know, online actors like this, troll factories and so on and so forth.

So it's becoming, Obvious where, [00:44:00] where to exactly look at and, and to whom we assign this kind of agency on, on the world arena, in these international processes and, and, and relations. 

Shawn: Okay. Alexander, one final question. What's something interesting you've been reading, watching, listening to or doing lately?

And it doesn't have to be related to this topic, . 

Alexander: To be honest, you know you know how academia works and actually takes up so much of your time. It's I don't even remember when I read a, a, a fiction book, you know, last time, because I have to read all those academic books all the time. Textbooks.

There's no real pleasure in life 

Shawn: anymore. That's so stark . 

Alexander: Yeah. No, right. A few days ago I've seen the. of Fincher in, it's it's a new film about Ireland and it's it's super deep. It's actually impacted me. It's, you know, [00:45:00] dark humor. It's a metaphor of deep conflict that is being hidden. It's a metaphor of human relationships, and it's not only about island.

If you have a chance to take a look, definitely do. It's about war civil war in, in, in, in Ireland. But it resonated with me because, you know, the country where I was sort of kind of born, it's was a different country, but still that claims the legacy is also in war. In, in, in the war. That with its neighboring brother, sister nation.

And probably that fact somehow resonated with me in this film as well. 

Shawn: Hmm. Dr. Kondakov, thanks for taking the time to have this kind of heavy conversation with me today. I appreciate it. Thank you. 

Alexander: Thank you very much for having me here.

Shawn: You know, I wanna say, That feeling that I mentioned at the outset of this episode of [00:46:00] anxiety and fear that I had being a queer person when I visited Russia. I've started to feel that same way again here in the United States after the concerted effort on the part of some politicians and some right wing extremists over the past couple of years to demonize queer folks, to label queer folks as pedophiles and groomers to strip any mention of queer lives from schools, libraries, even bookstore.

To terrorize trans kids in their families, essentially to criminalize queer folks. I will do everything in my power to avoid places like Florida and Texas and Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, et cetera. They're dangerous. They're life-threatening for my people, and primarily because politicians have taken deliberate direct aim at queer communities, queer families, and queer kids.

Why wouldn't violence increase as a. We have evidence from other places like Russia, for instance, that increased marginalization and criminalization of queer people is [00:47:00] linked to rises in violence, committed against queer people and queer communities. This problem is not limited to any one country, not limited to Russia, not limited to the United States.

These are shared problems without borders that require attention and discussion and compassion. Things that are very difficult to do. But if we don't do them, It leaves room for people like Vladimir Putin in Russia, Victor Orban in Hungary, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Donald Trump in the United States, Georgia, Maloney in Italy, to name just a few to exploit feelings of hopelessness, of shame, insecurity, and anger, and bottle it and weaponize it.

It has become so pervasive that we no longer have the convenience of walling ourselves off from the places that fester, the places that scare us, the places that threaten our futures, our lives. Hatred spreads like a plague. It isn't confined distant places, the wolf is at the door. We need to start putting [00:48:00] some skin in the game and addressing these issues head on as inconvenient.

And uncomfortable as it is each of us individually, but also collectively must steal ourselves for a tough fight if we wanna live in a world that is respectful of everyone. That is safe for everyone. Alright, check back next Friday and every Friday for a new episode of Deep Dive Chat soon folks.