The death of the newspaper review meant the end of the literary authority who would declare that books by straight, white men are always the best of books. That books by the conglomerate publishing houses are the best of books. That literary culture exists only in New York City.
.. And that is what all those people on the picket line fought to save: a sexist, racist, elitist system.
.. I want to tell them: this world is not for you, you are better without it. Outside the gates, not in. This world was in fact, in part, designed specifically to keep you out. It does not want you. It will not nourish you.
.. Nobody really wants to be James Joyce, though. When it comes down to it.
.. Totally inaccessible and publishing poison, forced to self-publish with the help of two (inadequately celebrated) lesbians, thought to be a madman, and still cursed to this day. No one really wants to be James Joyce, living in borderline poverty with an insane daughter and a layabout son, quietly changing the world but very rarely, if at all, acknowledged for it. So completely out on the frontier his books were confiscated and destroyed by multiple governments.
But everyone wants to think they’re James Joyce, in their cozy teaching jobs, in mortgaged homes, writing about the same things that everyone else is writing about.
.. Anxiety’s primary function is to ready the body for action and for change. It is a complicated uprooting process, the gathering together of energy and focus so that when you decide what to do, you are able to do it.
.. Give a person absolute freedom and probably what they will do is just copy the person closest to them. The anxiety of making a decision under absolute freedom is too much to bear.
.. It’s why the Internet culture is just a copy of newspaper culture, but with a few fucks and shits thrown in.
.. Don’t think there weren’t nights where I woke up with the thought “My entire purpose in life is to help people make decisions about which books to buy; I am simply part of someone’s marketing strategy,” chilling me to the bone.
The Republicans’ Gay Freakout
It takes forever in this country to build a new bridge, tunnel or train line, but it took no time flat for politicians in the Tar Heel State to convene a special session, formally ostracize North Carolina’s L.G.B.T. voters and wrap conservative Christians in a tight embrace. Who says America’s can-do spirit is dead?
What Kate Did
To make the case for this world order, Millett selected four writers to study as “cultural agents,” writers who “reflected and actually shaped attitudes.” D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, and Norman Mailer were eviscerated for their misogyny and sexual mysticism, while Jean Genet was lauded for exploring the psychology of sexual oppression. Lawrence, she argued, defined love as “dominating another person.” Miller was the voice of “contempt and disgust,” a writer whose works are marked by “neurotic hostility” and “virulent sexism.” Mailer, still a literary celebrity at the time of Millett’s writing, she saw as “a prisoner of the virility cult,” who presents “masculinity as a precarious spiritual capital in need of endless replenishment and threatened on every side.” Millett closely analyzed the scene of anal rape from Mailer’s 1965 novel An American Dream, and described it as a “rallying cry for a sexual politics in which diplomacy has failed and war is the last political resort of a ruling caste that feels its position in deadly peril.”
.. To make the case for this world order, Millett selected four writers to study as “cultural agents,” writers who “reflected and actually shaped attitudes.” D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, and Norman Mailer were eviscerated for their misogyny and sexual mysticism, while Jean Genet was lauded for exploring the psychology of sexual oppression. Lawrence, she argued, defined love as “dominating another person.” Miller was the voice of “contempt and disgust,” a writer whose works are marked by “neurotic hostility” and “virulent sexism.” Mailer, still a literary celebrity at the time of Millett’s writing, she saw as “a prisoner of the virility cult,” who presents “masculinity as a precarious spiritual capital in need of endless replenishment and threatened on every side.” Millett closely analyzed the scene of anal rape from Mailer’s 1965 novel An American Dream, and described it as a “rallying cry for a sexual politics in which diplomacy has failed and war is the last political resort of a ruling caste that feels its position in deadly peril.”
.. These women were Millett’s collaborators and friends. Like Millett, they advocated for the abolishment of monogamy, marriage, and the nuclear family. Firestone described a “sexual class system” in terms that much resembled Millett’s. She called pregnancy “barbaric,” lauded artificial reproduction, and imagined a utopia in which, children, like Eros, would move freely through the world.
.. What seems remarkable now is how seriously the cultural mainstream engaged with these revolutionary ideas—which isn’t to say approved of them. These women were reviewed widely, and often well.
.. Time ran five articles on the goals and organizing practices of the radical feminists.
.. Her application of Marxist theory to relations between the sexes particularly rankled for Howe, who saw his chance to remind Millett and her compatriots that true inequality took the form of class-based oppression. “Are the ladies of the Upper East Side of Manhattan simply ‘chattel’ in the way the wives of California grape pickers are,” he asked, “and if so, are they ‘chattels’ held by the same kinds of masters?”
.. “In some ways,” she writes, “it seems that we got the cultural change that feminism promised, without the concomitant political transformation.”
.. Still, it’s hard to imagine any work of literary scholarship—let alone a Ph.D. dissertation—landing its author on the cover of Time today.
Approaching the Bible Together (Michael Pahl)
There is a current debate among scholars as to whether Romans 1:18-32 even reflects Paul’s perspective, or if it is a perspective that Paul actually refutes starting in Romans 2:1 or even 3:21. For our discussion we will assume that Romans 1:18-32 is in fact Paul’s perspective
.. Paul may be giving a blanket condemnation of all same-sex acts regardless of context or motivation. This is the argument of the traditional view. However, given that the passage repeatedly emphasizes excessive “lust” and “passions,” this may reflect a common ancient assumption that same-sex acts were the result of a lack of sexual self-control, not from an underlying inclination or orientation. Or, given the pervasive view in the ancient world that sex acts should MCM Study Conference. September 26, 2015. Biblical Texts. p. 5 reflect an innate social hierarchy (male over female, free over slave, older over younger), Paul may be thinking of same-sex acts that violate this normal social order
.. A key part of this discussion is determining exactly what Paul means when he talks about these acts as “unnatural” or “contrary to nature” (para phusin). The traditional view argues that this means “contrary to the divinely created order” and thus unchangeable. The affirming view normally argues that this means “contrary to social norms” which do change.