>one thing I thought was odd about the BE piece was the notion that the
>right is
>better on fun. doesn't everyone think the party's elsewhere? I think one
>of the
>things the right hate even about right-wing liberals like Clinton is that
>they
>seem to have too much fun. I mean, sure the Christian right can throw a good
>revival meeting, but in terms of what they actually believe about fun (sex
>for
>instance), you couldn't ask for a colder shower. the anti-fun sentiment on
>the left
>is at least contested, ambiguous, and a matter usually more of innuendo and
>implication than Biblical text.
Well yes but.... There's a kind of rightist that hates Clinton for having too much "fun" (though Clinton himself, with his own Xtian background, was full of conflict over his "fun"). But there's a lot of passion, if not "fun," in right-wing politics. The Christians have their fantasies of the afterworld, the fascists have their hatred and their erotics of the Volk, and even the free marketeers have their ecstasies, as Meaghan Morris argues in her essay "Ecstasy and Economics":
"But the Treasurer [Paul Keating, Australia's treasury secretary during the
1980s] doing economics live on talk shows was really something to be seen. He could mesmerize the camera with those great big burning brown eyes, then move in with a stream of jargon that seemed on the surface unintelligible, and yet let you know, quite simply and profoundly, that really everything would be all right if yhou just *suffered* a little more, and let him take care of business.... There's an S&M glow about Keating's image as Treasurer... [...] "I saw men on television (trade-union stars, Cabinet Ministers, left-wing think-tank advisers) visibly hystericized by talking economics: eyes would glaze, shoulders hunch, lips tremble in a sensual paroxysm of 'letting the market decide,' 'making the hard decisions,' 'levelling the playing field,' 'improving productivity,' and 'challenging the cujlture.' Minds *melted*, rather than closed: those who quereied the wisdom of floating the exchange rate, deregulating the banks, or phasing out industry protection were less ignored than *washed away* in the intoxicating rush of 'living in a competitive world,' and 'joining the global economy.'"
Against that (fraudulent) ecstasy, what does the left have to offer? We don't really believe in utopias anymore. Too much of our discourse is full of duty and denial - no burgers! watch your language! how dare you have fun when people are suffering! Too many of our journals taste like castor oil or feel like dentistry without anesthesia.
Doug