Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] top 10 on Conservapedia Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:13:37 -0600 From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
Dennis Claxton wrote: I can only speak for myself, but the idea of having sex with a man is revolting on an almost physical level. I would rather eat poo.
(Mmmm, yummy poo!)
But what does that have to do with feeling threatened?
It has almost nothing to do with being threatened. What is _threatening_ is a major transformation of human relations. Immigration is threatening. Integration is threatening. Sex education in the schools is threatening. Abortion is threatening.* Challenges to male supremacy are threatening (to women as well as men). Plato argued that changes in hair style were threatening to the stability of the state.
CHANGE is threatening. That is the _legitimate_ foundation of conservatism, because change _is_ for the most part destructive rather than constructive. This is the reason why revolutionaries (or anyone working for fundamental reform) must seriously work to establish themselves as, essentially, a conserving force, nor a force for mere change for the sake of change. It is also why defense of abortion must be based on the In a Jar, Daddio, In a Jar strategy: i.e., abortion must come to be taken for granted, a commonplace, like an anppendectomy or clipping one's nails.
Jane Austen, a conservative when conservatism could still be intelligent rather than mindless, analyzed mindless conservatism in the chief villain of _Emma_, Emma's father. She also, there, analyzed how this sort of conservatism must be overcome: Mr. Woodhouse must be made to think Emma's marriage inevitable, and that inevitableness would give it legitimacy. Actually, a similar process is analyzed in _Mansfield Park_ in reference to that fathead, Sir Thomas.
And finally, note that there is nothing whatever hypocrtical in conservative homosexuals who stay in the closet and support heterosexist policies. Private (closeted) homoxexuality does not threten the state.
Carrol
Since I am 1) female and 2) bisexual, I wonder if guys on the list could explain to me what exactly is so threatening about homosexuality?
Joanna
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