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Hi Epi,
 
My responses will match your letters. As for as my 'alarming trend' goes, perhaps i might clear up a misunderstanding. Whereas most on the board appear to be directly involved in cinema as an art, some of us, including me, come from the philosophy side.
 
This world, i suspect, is far more rough-and- tumble than yours. That's because philosophy by definition is highly polemical--which, by the way, is derived directly from the classical Greek for 'war'. In terms of 'polemics', then, what you find 'alarming' is beside the point, because in warfare no one wins points for feelings.
 
In brief measure, If I have convinced others that 'pansy' should be considered mild humor rather than hate speech, it's because I've made the stronger case. This, of course, does not preclude the obvious that on an interpersonal basis, I respect the nomenclatural feelings of others.
 
A) A 'problematique' is an issue that the artist tries to resolve within the context of the work. It may have formal properties, such as the ability to do an entire film in monochrome (Kieslowski), or to describe a body without organs (Veerhoven). Proulx's "Brokeback", and the film as well, describes the impossibility of love when the two are invested with a sense of shame.
 
Proust is narratively clear that Charlus behaves like a...er...'Charlus' because fin de siecle Paris refuses him the right of love. Yet if Proust were alive today, I'd be asking him whether or not behaving a la Charlus is not prophetic, or self reinforcing.
 
My favorite recent film on love is "Lost and Delirious". Love is far too important to be left to Wildeish street theatre, or to be destroyed by Judith Butleresque nonsense.
 
B)  You seem to think that you have some deep insight into what self-respect means, but I'm afraid you're begging the question. Ditto with your sentiment of 'horrific'. Here again, you're imposing your entiments on others, not seeking for meaning.
 
Regarding all of this "White oppressor" stuff, I would say that you need to be reminded that 350,000 white oppressors died to free the slaves, and that the African slave trade was a world-wide event that depopulated Africa by 50 million people. Roughly 10 million went to the east, 20 to the west--9 bound for present-day Amerika--and 20 held in internal slavery.
 
To fast- forward a bit, the Jim Crow anti-reconstruction rollback was accopmplishe by white legistators during the 1962-8 period. African-American CR marches, which included many whites such as myself, were protected by whites who ostensibly felt closer to 'the negroes' than their genetic simulacra, the southern white trash pipples.
 
C)  My strong disagreement with the Wilde-crowd is based upon my understanding that there are two, and only two, realistic dimensions to the issue of Gay-Lib: sex and love. Sex involves privacy, and is more or less resolved. Love is complicated, because it concerns legitimation by others in a public, non-private scene.
 
Now I don't think it would be that difficult to find an epistemic thread to connect Wilde/Pater to today's Queer Theory (I'll leave Mr Chanian withthe details!), and to demonstrate (and here I'll have to take over!) how such theory and its manifestations is an epistemological train wreck--and absolute political disaster not only for gays but the left in general.
 
For example, ther notion that one can comprehend beauty without referencing cultural norms is utter nonsense. Theirs, in brief, is the infamous 'bucket theory' of philosophical ridicule.
 
Again, what works is simple normalization. Jenny brings Sally, and David bring Sam home for Thanksgiving dinner. BFD.
 
D)  You're free to behave in any manner you see fit. What's important is that you acknowledge norms as pre-exicting social facts.
 
F)  Self-defined gays really are more interesting than the average straight male. That's because gay self-identity is an acknowledgement of being on the margin; and as we know, things in general are far more interesting out there than in the middle.
 
G)  Aesthecism presents us with the wrong idea as to how art works, and a worse idea as to how the artist should behave. Art for art's sake inevitable ghettoizes the endeavor and its practitioners. Small wonder, then, that reasonable people with conservative values refuse to subsidize via taxation!
 
BTW, the Wiki-issue as to what--and who--it reppresents-- is alive and kicking. Wiki depends upon volunteers who 'will eventually' be edited by....(?).
 
H) What we have are the two ur-texts of Pater and Wilde that are quite clear on this issue: social theatre, sexual exploration, and the cultivation of 'beauty' go hand in hand. Yet, that Aesthetes R Homos obviously does not imply the contrary. Hence, sociologically, the potential research as to the extent of the correlation...
 
BH

Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2010 11:07:52 +1100
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Alright, enough is enough
To: [log in to unmask]

Bill,

You started an alarming trend of getting others to find referring to the 'p' word as acceptable, which I wanted to place in context. Now that I've done that, and am no longer on a deadline, I am free to discuss everything else.

You said:

a) Being gay is ‘problematic’ because Proust and Proulix said so... in the Spinozan sense, [Kushner has] discussed the problematic as to what the gay body can do.

A)  Do you mean Annie Proulx? If not, I'm not familiar with any of those theorists, and so you'll have to explain this claim that being gay is 'problematic', a claim which sounds quite suspect.

b) Afro-Americans do use the N word so constantly that it does, indeed, become problematic as to whether non-Afs are entitled to the same nomenclature.

B)  It's not news to me at all that African-Americans are still internalising the racism of their white oppressors, that is why I said no self-respecting Afro-American would do so. Likewise with queer. There's nothing odd or unusual about homosexuality, so IMO people who identify that way have internalised the hetero-normative urge to conceive of GLBTIs as 'other'. It's horrific that you think the fact that these people haven't yet accessed deeper reserves of self-esteem gives you permission to further add insult to injury by taking up the N word again.

c) I said: the concept that being non-hetero-normative is just as good as being otherwise.

You said: Moreover, your notion of ‘goodness’ needs defining. Mine, OTH, is simple: there are no standards of ‘goodness’ with respect to privacy.

C)  I could have used 'desireable', 'healthy', 'in order', 'respectable', etc. I don't understand the tie-in to privacy. Or do you mean privacy in the bedroom?

d) most of us are used to defining just about anything from normative standards

D)  A happy reminder why I have no desire to think like a normal person.

e) Your 'point No. 4' manages to say very little to me right now. Maybe I'll come back to it later.

f) Well actually I don't believe in labeling sexual orientation except for convenience when other points around the issue are more important. I believe everyone has the potential to be attracted to either sex. That said, I respect people who identify consciously enough as homosexually attracted to seek out the company of others who do the same, because they have had to ask more questions than the average person and the adversity they've faced has built a lot of character. All else being equal, I'd rather talk to a man who identifies as gay than one who identifies as straight because he will usually be more interesting. Now this will not be the case when, say 50 years from now, growing up identifying as homosexual will be seen as remarkable as being dark-haired, but it sure is now.
 
F

g)  I would strongly disagree with Wiki that the essence of aestheticism is still with us. Of course, Wiki is far better at name dropping (attaching people’s names to labeled movements) than in dealing with concepts as such.

G)  Aestheticism is as much with us today as other movements such as romanticism and impressionism. It's best to learn from the positives (and negatives) from any movement, and move on, in any case. Wikipedia and its related 'wiki' websites represent a body of knowledge generated by consensus on a topic.

h) I would be pleased to discover that ‘art for art’s sake’ cannot be positively correlated with either sexual preference or a stated life-style.

H)  I think you would be pleased, if you did some research, then. I don't know anybody in this day and age who identifies as an aesthete, and you shouldn't assume that just because two gay men were prominent figures in this movement it has 'intrinsic gay qualities'.

Okay, I have to go for now.

Epi



On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 9:53 AM, bill harris <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
(complete text)

My dear Epi,

Welcome to the Wiki-wars! 

So let's see--Where do we stand? Well, I wikkied a piece up on the aesthetic movement which showed them to be a bunch of self-centered jerks who believed in the cultivation of (sensory data only, non-contemplative) beauty, but who rejected the notion of ethics altogether. Through the conceptual lens of at least one understanding of Will to Power, their posture makes them somewhat 'fascistic'.

So now you're informing me that 'pansy' is off limits in wikkispeak; to which I'm offering the following reply: How about doing a Wikkisearch on 'queer', as in 'Queer theory"?
As I anticipate that your response will be of the self-hatred gener, let me go ahead and say that, under no circumstance do I accept 'latency' as anything more than so much psycho-mumbo-jumbo.

What 's of far greater importance is that you've simply chosen to ignore several core issues and related questions within this thread in favor of obsessing over the usage of a word. For example,:

-- Nietzsche's Will to Power's relationship to The aesthetic and art in general.
-- Does the aesthetic movement even accurately  describe how beauty is perceived?
-- What does Deleuze have to say about Art?
--Is art really about the creation of beauty?
-- How do we accurately define the relationship of art to social forces?

But to discuss these issues entails reading and thinking--ostensibly a far more difficult task than accusing someone of homophobia because they used a word that Wiki didn't like. So to return jibe for jibe, i'd suggest that you're obsessing over the p word because you cannot contribute meaningfully in any other way. This is sort of like the wealthy arts patron who, at the vernissage, changes the subject from painting to his new yacht. 

In any case, this psycho-mechanism of altering a conversationt to fit one's own capacity is far more down-to-earth acceptable than your Freudian stuff.

BH
--

Reality is the Wildest Fantasy
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