actually, when it comes to discussions of sex and sexuality, adherence to the line that we shouldn't discuss pomo sexuation theories by picking up on public rhetoric seems to reinforce puritanical attitudes toward sex when it's assumed that any such discussion can only be prurient and based on the lewd desires of discussants since, apparently, good and decent people don't discuss sex, sexuality and sexuation in public. at least kim has a deecent attitude wrt the need for actual discussions of the issue.
there is no such thing as a society in which there aren't norms and normalizing values. i agree with kim on everything in his article but that. it would be, for example, truly impossible to have a social movement and a party if we didn't have norms about how to be a member of that social movement and a member of that party. norms, of course, are informal and aren't absolute and they certainly aren't equivalent to _law_. norms instead are informal ideals--articulated in a variety of ways--that suggest how we _ought_ to behave in order to be for the movement or for the party. they are informal and sanctioned by the judgemnt of others -- a contextual judgment.
i mean, seriously, what would happen under revolutionary conditions if you found party members conspiring with ant-revolutionary forces? say hey, hypocrisy, whatever. if you found people teaching criticisms about party doctrines or making fun of the party slogans carrol thinks we need, what would you do? what if you found out that an important writer for the movement was dealing in stock markets abroad? i'm sure that the people involved would be gossiped about and sanctioned by the judgments of others.
that said, i certainly don't think that part of an arsenal of political strategy should include outting or anything similar.
>No one in this discussion has yet raised the question: where does
>Sullivan, who is gay, get off being a Catholic, and a histrionically
>devout one? "His own prescriptions" obviously derive from his
>Catholicism.
but maybe this is precisely why he gets off? :)
kelley