Just as you quote Oliver Wendell Holmes or William Gibson, I find succinct, clear thinking articulated in your work, e.g (1)" Our universal human right's must be based on some shared understanding of what it is to be human, and to flourish...";(2) "I’m sure some people in the audience think that we have a God-given nature; I don’t. I think we have an evolution-given nature. But anyway, the central point is: we are a particular type of creature."
Don't be surprised as time goes by to find: As Helen Joyce said....
And there's more, or course, rich in thought and content. And thanks for studying queer theory so we don't have to, as one might say. I'm reminded of the post-modern trip about transgressing boundaries -- see also, of course, Alan Sokal's masterpiece "Transgressing the boundaries..." for a fine example of how much sense all of that makes.
Glad to see these essays and, again, hoping that the lecture will eventually be posted to Youtube. Grateful from the PacN'West USA.
I'd bet my next paycheck--such as it is-- that the Savile complaint filed against Sonia Appleby was just weaponized bureaucracy. I doubt the complainant sincerely thought he was being accused of impropriety; he was just trying to silence Appleby's concerns about child referrals. The Savile comment made a handy pretext, but a pretext is likely all it was.
Lovely piece and well worth publishing. Everyone should absorb it fully.
The purpose of “queering” is to maximized loneliness, isolation, and despondency. How?
Because “queering” sees connection and defines it as power imbalance. Once disconnection from society is achieved, then disconnection from others is the focus. Once that is achieved all that is left is disconnection from the self.
We see that in children disconnected from their own experience and bodies.
The quality of intelligence and incisiveness present in part 2, as it was in part one, is magnificent. I’ll confess, though, that with this portion of the remarks, I felt a bit of a disconnect: “For conservatives, there is such a thing as a shared human nature, and that’s why we’re able to have a concept of the common good. The point of society is to try to give life to shared ideals, and that will involve societal impositions and restraints on individuals. Liberals emphasise a different part of what it means to be a good, happy and flourishing individual — the bit that’s about freedom to make our own decisions and to choose for ourselves what it means to live the “good life”.” The concern I have with this framing is that it seems to put the issues on a left-right axis, and that doesn’t ring true to me.
Hyper-individualism makes sense to me as a defining concept for purposes of the remarks, but not hyper-liberalism. From the vantage point of the US, and as someone who is several decades old, hyper-individualism aptly describes, along with examples you note here, the devotion of many who call themselves conservatives to their Second Amendment rights, including their right to own AK-47s for personal use. I also am old enough to recall when many who call themselves conservatives insisted on renaming “french fries” “freedom fries,” because of France’s opposition to our misbegotten Iraq War. In those days, “freedom” was a by-word often used to signify the right to do anything they deemed fit, the larger good be damned.
I suspect how comfortable one feels about that division will depend on what one has in mind when using terms like 'conservative' and 'liberal', i.e., ideal types or empirical averages. Helen, I suspect, has an ideal type of the conservative in mind, with which — as you correctly point out — realities do not always neatly align. In your example of gun control in the US, I suspect the conservatives would lay emphasis on their conservation of the legal status quo; in contrast, gun control in Australia was introduced by our conservative party, which is called the Liberal Party, an accurate descriptor of its economic rather than social policy. The labels 'conservative' and 'liberal' therefore seem to denote dispositions at work on the left and right, which differ however in what they apply to.
Just as you quote Oliver Wendell Holmes or William Gibson, I find succinct, clear thinking articulated in your work, e.g (1)" Our universal human right's must be based on some shared understanding of what it is to be human, and to flourish...";(2) "I’m sure some people in the audience think that we have a God-given nature; I don’t. I think we have an evolution-given nature. But anyway, the central point is: we are a particular type of creature."
Don't be surprised as time goes by to find: As Helen Joyce said....
And there's more, or course, rich in thought and content. And thanks for studying queer theory so we don't have to, as one might say. I'm reminded of the post-modern trip about transgressing boundaries -- see also, of course, Alan Sokal's masterpiece "Transgressing the boundaries..." for a fine example of how much sense all of that makes.
Glad to see these essays and, again, hoping that the lecture will eventually be posted to Youtube. Grateful from the PacN'West USA.
I'd bet my next paycheck--such as it is-- that the Savile complaint filed against Sonia Appleby was just weaponized bureaucracy. I doubt the complainant sincerely thought he was being accused of impropriety; he was just trying to silence Appleby's concerns about child referrals. The Savile comment made a handy pretext, but a pretext is likely all it was.
Lovely piece and well worth publishing. Everyone should absorb it fully.
The purpose of “queering” is to maximized loneliness, isolation, and despondency. How?
Because “queering” sees connection and defines it as power imbalance. Once disconnection from society is achieved, then disconnection from others is the focus. Once that is achieved all that is left is disconnection from the self.
We see that in children disconnected from their own experience and bodies.
The quality of intelligence and incisiveness present in part 2, as it was in part one, is magnificent. I’ll confess, though, that with this portion of the remarks, I felt a bit of a disconnect: “For conservatives, there is such a thing as a shared human nature, and that’s why we’re able to have a concept of the common good. The point of society is to try to give life to shared ideals, and that will involve societal impositions and restraints on individuals. Liberals emphasise a different part of what it means to be a good, happy and flourishing individual — the bit that’s about freedom to make our own decisions and to choose for ourselves what it means to live the “good life”.” The concern I have with this framing is that it seems to put the issues on a left-right axis, and that doesn’t ring true to me.
Hyper-individualism makes sense to me as a defining concept for purposes of the remarks, but not hyper-liberalism. From the vantage point of the US, and as someone who is several decades old, hyper-individualism aptly describes, along with examples you note here, the devotion of many who call themselves conservatives to their Second Amendment rights, including their right to own AK-47s for personal use. I also am old enough to recall when many who call themselves conservatives insisted on renaming “french fries” “freedom fries,” because of France’s opposition to our misbegotten Iraq War. In those days, “freedom” was a by-word often used to signify the right to do anything they deemed fit, the larger good be damned.
I suspect how comfortable one feels about that division will depend on what one has in mind when using terms like 'conservative' and 'liberal', i.e., ideal types or empirical averages. Helen, I suspect, has an ideal type of the conservative in mind, with which — as you correctly point out — realities do not always neatly align. In your example of gun control in the US, I suspect the conservatives would lay emphasis on their conservation of the legal status quo; in contrast, gun control in Australia was introduced by our conservative party, which is called the Liberal Party, an accurate descriptor of its economic rather than social policy. The labels 'conservative' and 'liberal' therefore seem to denote dispositions at work on the left and right, which differ however in what they apply to.
Well observed. My spouse is British, as it happens, and noted something similar.
Still greatly enjoying it!
Have cross posted
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/chinatown-screwing-like-a-chinaman
Dusty