These Kids Today
or
Leon Kass's Jaw-Dropper
or
Why Sex is a Filthy, Filthy Thing
You know, sometimes one's jaw literally does drop...
The philosopher in my demands that I note that deeply, deeply buried in this unbelievable piece of shit essay are a the shreds of a few semi-interesting points. But it's kind of silly to note that at all given the astounding idiocy of the thing.
Here's my favorite part:
"The change most immediately devastating for wooing is probably the sexual revolution. For why would a man court a woman for marriage when she may be sexually enjoyed, and regularly, without it?"
Kieran Healy's answer at CT is a gem:
"Well, it's not as if I'm going to make my own potroast, now, is it?"
These people--prudes and puritans like Kass apparently is--are the real perverts. The suppressed premiss in all their drivvel is the same: sex is dirty. It's filthy and evil and the only thing that could ever justify doing it is making cooing little babies and preserving the species. My God. Who are these people?
Jesus, have these people never felt passion? Do they know nothing of love? Does this man know any women? It's all about the babies and the drudgery for them. If there's any fun in it, it must be bad.
Most of us don't find someone we want to spend our whole lives with when we're 18, and few of us anymore are stupid and benighted enough to commit ourselves for life to someone we barely know and have never had sex with. Kass's ideal is the sexual equivalent of demanding that Smith should speak to no one until the age of 20, and then, after exchanging a few brief comments with a few people--Jones, Brown, Greene--choose one of them as the only person Smith can converse with for the rest of Smith's life.
Jesus, these f*ing people must be dead from the waist down. Or the neck up.
O.k. See, now I'm just part of the problem in the 'Sphere. Now I'm just spewing invective. Goddang it this really pisses me off. This is just what I said I wouldn't do anymore--seek out the dumbest of the dumb and ridicule it. What a tragic waste of the human spirit.
I'd far rather sit around with Azael telling me what a numbnut I am about Iraq. At least I might learn something. Things like this Kass thing just make me want to bang my head against the desk and type irrational insults.
Go away. Move along. Nothing to see here.
or
Leon Kass's Jaw-Dropper
or
Why Sex is a Filthy, Filthy Thing
You know, sometimes one's jaw literally does drop...
The philosopher in my demands that I note that deeply, deeply buried in this unbelievable piece of shit essay are a the shreds of a few semi-interesting points. But it's kind of silly to note that at all given the astounding idiocy of the thing.
Here's my favorite part:
"The change most immediately devastating for wooing is probably the sexual revolution. For why would a man court a woman for marriage when she may be sexually enjoyed, and regularly, without it?"
Kieran Healy's answer at CT is a gem:
"Well, it's not as if I'm going to make my own potroast, now, is it?"
These people--prudes and puritans like Kass apparently is--are the real perverts. The suppressed premiss in all their drivvel is the same: sex is dirty. It's filthy and evil and the only thing that could ever justify doing it is making cooing little babies and preserving the species. My God. Who are these people?
Jesus, have these people never felt passion? Do they know nothing of love? Does this man know any women? It's all about the babies and the drudgery for them. If there's any fun in it, it must be bad.
Most of us don't find someone we want to spend our whole lives with when we're 18, and few of us anymore are stupid and benighted enough to commit ourselves for life to someone we barely know and have never had sex with. Kass's ideal is the sexual equivalent of demanding that Smith should speak to no one until the age of 20, and then, after exchanging a few brief comments with a few people--Jones, Brown, Greene--choose one of them as the only person Smith can converse with for the rest of Smith's life.
Jesus, these f*ing people must be dead from the waist down. Or the neck up.
O.k. See, now I'm just part of the problem in the 'Sphere. Now I'm just spewing invective. Goddang it this really pisses me off. This is just what I said I wouldn't do anymore--seek out the dumbest of the dumb and ridicule it. What a tragic waste of the human spirit.
I'd far rather sit around with Azael telling me what a numbnut I am about Iraq. At least I might learn something. Things like this Kass thing just make me want to bang my head against the desk and type irrational insults.
Go away. Move along. Nothing to see here.
posted by Winston Smith at
10:29 AM
7 Comments:
Don't be so hard on yourself. It's another datapoint about how deeply disturbed Bush's administration is -- they appointed this irrational fellow to advise 'the nation' on matters of great import. And, if you'd just poke a little, there is in fact a philosophical point to be extracted from where Kass' methods lead.
Willard (to Kass): they say your methods are ... unsound.
See? Invective, but hip, referential invective, with just the right overtones.
"The change most immediately devastating for wooing is probably the sexual revolution. For why would a man court a woman for marriage when she may be sexually enjoyed, and regularly, without it?"
LOL, I love this stuff, it never gets old.
(sarcasm on)
Personally, my view of marriage has always been this narrow. My parents' example and the example of all my friends parents and the time I spent in the First Baptist church has always lead me down the path to the inevitable conclusion that marriage is ultimately about nothing more than getting laid and on a regular basis.
(sarcasm off)
From the cited article: "Once female modesty became a first casualty of the sexual revolution, even women eager for marriage lost their greatest power to hold and to discipline their prospective mates. For it is a woman's refusal of sexual importunings, coupled with hints or promises of later gratification, that is generally a necessary condition of transforming a man's lust into love."
So access to their genitalia is the only thing of value women have to offer men? I guess all of the socializing, recreation, child raising, intellectual conversation, financial input, etc. I enjoyed with my spouse and best friend before she passed away was just delusional. The things you can learn on the Internet!
They want to live in the 1950s but with lower tax rates.
"...marriage is ultimately about nothing more than getting laid and on a regular basis."
You are obviously not married.
"So access to their genitalia is the only thing of value women have to offer men?"
Yes.
Seriously, men are stupid and do not value all the wonderful things women do until they're in the thick of it.
If men disappeared tomorrow, women would see to it that the world would keep on ticking. The converse is manifestly untrue. I mean, how many drones does a hive need?
WS, you unearth the faultline between the Kama Sutra and Victorian parties, and why the twain shall never meet. We're back into the teleology of sex again. Some feel it has a socializing function, like bonobos or something, others think it has something to do with making babies.
(OK, I showed my hand with that last one, but I think I laid out the parameters pretty fairly...)
False dichotomy here, tvd.
What should be under discussion is reproduction, which in biological terms is not just sex, conception, zygote, etc., but raising the young to adulthood so that the genes can be perpetuated.
Unlike other primates, human females display no outward signs when they are fertile, and they are fertile 12 months of the year as well.
That means that for a human male to ensure that his DNA will keep going, he must find a women to impregnate, and help take care of her and the child until the child is mature enough to successfully reproduce.
Pair-bonding encourages the parents to stay together, and this is just as necessary as 'making babies' as said babies have the longest developemental period of any primate from birth to adulthood.
They need a lot more time and attention than, say, a bonobo or baby gorilla.
You are obviously not married.
And you obviously missed the sarcasm tags.
G.B. Shaw wrote that marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity. It's a bit less crude, but still raises the same point.
He wrote that after he was married, BTW.
What is the true dichotomy?
(Yes, I missed the sarcasm tags. Sorry. They don't have 'em where I'm from.)
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