Another New Years will inevitably come and go.  Which means a few things involving tax liabilities but more pertinent to several of us are the number of people recently convinced by white supremacists to resolve to improve their overall physical fitness…

…here come the Nazi Rezzos!

This is my review of Boulevard Brewing More S’more:

Like Hans Grüber, I read about it in Time magazine.

What’s the most surprising thing you learned in your research?
It was super interesting reading the reflections of fitness enthusiasts in the early 20th century. They said we should get rid of corsets, corsets are an assault on women’s form, and that women should be lifting weights and gaining strength. At first, you feel like this is so progressive.
Then you keep reading, and they’re saying white women should start building up their strength because we need more white babies. They’re writing during an incredible amount of immigration, soon after enslaved people have been emancipated. This is totally part of a white supremacy project. So that was a real “holy crap” moment as a historian, where deep archival research really reveals the contradictions of this moment.

Not Richard Simmons

I at first assumed this was another “historian” who was going to apply a half-witted perception of societal ills onto a historical concept and therefore render contemporary interpretations of said historical concept as nothing more than racism, misogyny, etc. Ultimately to be saved by Richard Simmons.

Turns out, once I began researching it further, its not too far from the truth:

In Europe, the First World War started in August of 1914, with the entrance of the United States occurring three years later in 1917. With the United States’ entry into the battle, hundreds of thousands of military personnel were drafted and trained for combat. After the war was fought and won, statistics were released from the draft with disturbing data regarding fitness levels. It was found that one out of every three drafted individuals was unfit for combat and many of those drafted were highly unfit prior to military training (5,9). Government legislation was passed that ordered the improvement of physical education programs within the public schools.[…]

This was in line with a movement in Europe known as “Muscular Christianity”.  Here’s a rundown on the British version, convenient for  those of us that only speak English.  The idea being if society can only be as strong as its weakest member, society therefore must create the incentive to improve the lot by strengthening itself where it is weakest.  Consider the imagery of shirtless, strapping lads working dutifully in the fields in Nazi and Soviet propaganda.  Even in the context of the ancient world, Greek city-states would train athletes to compete against themselves in a relatively peaceful manner were always portrayed in the most physically perfect manner possible.

It was this way I discovered out of the “Muscular Christianity” movement a “Muscular Judaism” emerged around the same time, particularly in Austria.  The idea being strength must be countered with strength.  It gained so much traction, prior to the Anschluss a disproportionate number of Olympic medals were awarded to Austrian athletes of Jewish descent, relative to the Austrian population.

Which means this bit from Family Guy was dead on.

Of course, nothing in the Time article makes the connection the same people advocating physical fitness on a nationalized scale were the same early 20th Century eugenicists.  I can’t imagine why.  Be strong because you ARE stronger, comrade.

 

This is not the first “s’mores” stout I’ve had.  Previous versions I’ve tried I found a bit sweet because of the burnt sugar taste they often incorporate to give the impression of s’mores.  That’s not an issue here, because this was barrel aged.  So this is like taking a white girl beer, and dropping a shot of bourbon into it.  Does it make it better?  Yes, actually it does.  Yet, this is sort of turning into the IPA wars:   instead of covering up a terrible beer with a high abv, they are covering up a slightly less terrible beer with high, whiskey sourced abv. It may be lazy, and I may otherwise excuse it because I happen to like it, but today I will recognize it as lazy. Boulevard Brewing More S’more: 3.5/5 (11.8% ABV)