Dissident Fetish

(big snip)

Empires love their dissidents foreign.

Any regime, no matter how repressive, will gladly fête its enemy’s critics—while homegrown versions of those critics occupy concrete cells. Cooing over foreign dissidents allows establishment hacks to pose like sexy rebels—while simultaneously affirming that their own system is the best.

The dissident fetishist takes a brave, principled person, and uses them like a codpiece of competitive virtue.

The Kremlin loves (American) whistle-blowers. The State Department loves (Russian) anarchist punks.

Mainstream media cherishes these dissidents because they allow journalists the by-proxy thrill of challenging power. They, too, can stand square-shouldered against Putin or Obama, capes billowing behind them in the wind.

These same media figures aren’t always so lippy on their home turf.

Not everyone gets to be called a dissident, of course. In pop imagery, a dissident should be pure and unworldly, unconcerned with either the danger or fame his or her actions may bring. Dissidents should be educated, telegenic. They should renounce violence. They should talk in the Western-friendly language of human rights.

In court, they should stand with their backs straight, their words like honey and fire.

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/06/dissident-fetish-molly-crabapple

Well worth the read.