Hello all  -  My last e-mail posting was, according to some,
"inappropriate". I used "inappropriate language" and such words as I
used deserve a censorship system in order to protect the public as it
were. My language was considered, by some, to be bad that is. I used bad
words.

The best and most reasonable form of censorship is often
self-censorship. Therefore I try and practice just this. I will
unsubscribe. But I do so without any bad feelings and I do so in order
to censor myself and avoid any implications towards other people. I also
do so because this list of outres is a good list and it does not need to
be labelled as a list that uses "inappropriate language". I have always
thought that there is a big difference between scratching ones bottom
and taking the skin off it.

But there are good and reasonable justifications for my posting that
used a wicked street-language.

For example. "The Adventure" ( 1911) by Professor George Simmel was an
essay where the adventure, like the erotic and like the love affair, was
one "island in life" with which a meaningful sense of "time" ( in a
secular world lost to spiritual and religious knowledges ) was made
possible. Art, for Simmel, was conncected to the adventure. The
adventure here was akin to various "banned books". But this very
"diff-errant" was one island of deep sensuous life and such gave
significant meaning for folk in the moves between the particular
"moment" and the generalised essence of abstraction. This was, in other
words, experiential learning. The work of at least one professor might
be cited as a kind of justification for my posting. In this sense my
words were not "bad".

Think of James Joyce or think of other writers that have been banned and
burnt. Adventure literature has an art within itself which seems to be
banned and burnt by those that deal in the "Ordering of Things". Just
why adventure writing gets banned is interesting. Just why the language
of the street gets black-balled is also interesting and my point here is
that adventure literature cannot follow the "restricted-codes" of
"appropriateness".

I suggest that my posting where street-talk was used in a kind of sexual
and sometimes erotic ( porographic ?) way was nothing new or special. In
fact it was quite banal. Shame that it causes such big waves at times
and with some.

Those memories of camping trips, for example, where youngsters begin to
live in the outdoor-setting-of-freedom are very often camping trips
where youngsters hold hands in romantic fashion. At other times such
camps are the first place where sexual activity is understood. I clap my
hands in delight when this happens. For many this intimate adventure is
what made the outdoors really memorable. Often there is a wonderful
education here at work but this is true only when many other
considerations are taken into account as we know. The education cannot
happen however by us banning this erotic adventure or by ignoring such
erotic zones. Any outdoor worker will know what I mean here.

Of course there is more. The erotic nature of the outdoors and the
adventure is sensuous in many contexts. But my point here is that this
erotic zone is central to our work and this sometimes is decribed well
through various language-games.

As good boy scouts we used to follow the ten commandments and one such
commandment was to be clean in thought, word and deed. We memorised this
appropriate code of ethics well and then after "lights out" we skipped
across the fields to visit the Girl Guides camping place. Today the Girl
Guides visit, too, the Boy Scouts I think. The outdoors was always a
site of contested language-games and more. The outdoors was a place for
growing up. Thank god I was lucky to have some sensitive leaders who
understood my youthful fears concerning "every seed is sacred". Thank
god I held hands by the lake with a beautiful and seductive young girl
from North wales. She taught me love as we held hands in our moving
adventure. For some years we wrote each other letters. She helped me
grow up. We touched each other in many many ways too.

Homosexual behaviour is also a clear outdoor-thing. If research folk get
busy there are mountains of happenings to work through here. Hetrosexual
behaviour, of course, too. There is also a sensuous "doing-it-alone"
aspect that can usually only be communicated through wild-writing or
silent winks. Such were my real points. Nothing new and nothing special.

I would like to add some "appropriateness" more. i would like to quote
the writings of one mountaineer and psychologist from a few years ago
and a homosexual person that Jim Perrin has written so well about (
Perrin 1993 Ernest press ) :-

" This climbing. Perhaps, really, one was never made for it. I have a
conceit that I was even made for more than that : more than to satisfy
extremly one's own pride. It would be nice to feel that one could have
possibilities of interacting in an expansile manner, contacting with
life beyond and outside of ourselves. No. I do not particularly want to
make things quail before me : the satisfaction of seeing them bow the
head is charged too much with dispondancy. They all bow their heads and
their eyes are averted. My chest heaves up and down again, alone. Then
one must strike an attitude, clench the muscle of the jaw. How can one ?
One does not know what it is all about. I wanted a friend, not this. I
wanted understanding, not this. I hoped we might help each other to
pierce the partitians : how can one do that while one holds oneself so,
clenching the muscles of the jaw and of a fine appearance, getting
blunted. "
       ( Menlove Edwards  - see Jim Perrin 1993, Ernest Press )

Eric Blair



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%