I think the deal with the Culture is that by getting the problem of
how to satisfy the more basic sensual appetites out of the way,
they're able to concentrate on larger-scale and longer-term projects
(some of which are incredibly intricate) - nobody ever has to be
*distracted* by sex, unless they want to be. It's a kind of angelism
("refusal to acknowledge one's subordination to any of the exigencies
of the created order", or words to that effect).
A leitmotif in Stephenson is the need for male characters to exercise
their prostates periodically. The savant Waterhouse actually draws a
graph correlating rises and falls in his ability to solve
cryptographic problems with the timing of his most recent ejaculation.
This reminds me of a very funny Onion article, a while back:
Scientists Unravel Mystery of Male Orgasm.
Dominic
On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 09:33:18 +1100, Alison Croggon
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On 16/3/05 11:46 PM, "MJ Walker" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Why did Adam & Eve bite the apple, only to be told they would have to
> > bite the dust?
>
> This makes me think of the temptation scene in Paradise Lost. If you'll
> forgive me quoting myself for a second: "In Milton's Paradise Lost, Eve
> addresses the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge as the "best of Fruits", "whose
> taste ... at first assay / Gave elocution to the mute, and taught / The
> Tongue not made for Speech to speak thy praise". Significantly, in Milton's
> version the most tempting quality of the fruit is rationality: Eve sees that
> the Serpent "knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discernes" and, desiring
> this "intellectual food", she eats the apple, greedily gorging "without
> restraint". A woman's intellectual curiosity, inseparable from sensual
> abandon, precipitates the Fall of Mankind, instates the central myth of
> nostalgia in Western symbology, and is a synonym for disaster."
>
> Thinking also of the introductory temptation scenes of Goethe's Faust.
> (Peter Stein's production of Parts I&II were televised here recently,
> although I didn't see it all). Bruno Ganz played Faust as a passionate
> sensualist in his intellectual strivings, but a sensualist repressed; his
> ambition to understand everything is a monstrous hunger (by which of course
> he is revealed and undone).
>
> Given all those cautionary tales, I guess it's unsurprising that pleasure
> should enjoy such anathema: it seems to be embedded as a cultural assumption
> that as soon as one enjoys thinking too much, disaster follows. But
> naturally I'd take Barthes' idea and analyse it genderwise as well (though
> Knut I've seen enough right wing commentary to attest to its contemporary
> application). The notion of the pleasure-hating feminist is an idee fixe in
> conservative thinking, and isn't often borne out in reality. The odd thing
> is that it's mostly the right wingers who are hell bent on interfering with
> other people's pleasures. But yes, pleasure is as Barthes says "scandalous"
> and (potentially) "revolutionary"; and also politically neutral.
>
> This is of course a more dynamic and multiple idea of pleasure than those of
> the Culture's citizens (I haven't read the book, but it sounds very like
> Brave New World), which sounds somewhat anaesthetising; consumable pleasure,
> unidimensional and transient, which engages less than the whole self.
> Rather like many of the pleasures available to us, which must be partial and
> disposable in order to keep the economy growing.
>
> Best
>
> A
>
> Alison Croggon
>
> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
> Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
> Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
>
--
// Alas, this comparison function can't be total:
// bottom is beyond comparison. - Oleg Kiselyov
|