tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post9039792243619671116..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: À la recherche du temps bawdyCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-35072893188857784502007-06-10T15:04:00.000-04:002007-06-10T15:04:00.000-04:00And see, I'm such a subversive type that I figure ...And see, I'm such a subversive type that I figure if animals do it, it's probably a natural thing!<BR/><BR/>Of course, that means feeding the "Man is superior to animals because Man has a sense of right and wrong and knows how to conquer His animalistic tendencies" crowd.Another Damned Medievalisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05231085915472400163noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-12244097386788835802007-06-09T17:41:00.000-04:002007-06-09T17:41:00.000-04:00Good q: depends on where you draw the line between...Good q: depends on where you draw the line between nature and unnatural. I'm thinking of sodomy here as 'unnatural,' which is why animals that seem to 'naturally' cross gender lines, engage in sodomy, and otherwise complicate the line between natural and unnatural are so interesting to me. And no doubt so frustrating to reactionaries.Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-11068746722861234802007-06-09T17:27:00.000-04:002007-06-09T17:27:00.000-04:00Karl, if it's an animal, how can it be unnatural?Karl, if it's an animal, how can it be unnatural?Another Damned Medievalisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05231085915472400163noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-45627679378785789632007-06-09T12:56:00.000-04:002007-06-09T12:56:00.000-04:00Good point, ADM. Arguments from nature assume a hu...Good point, ADM. Arguments from nature assume a human continuity with nature, but Christian eschatology argues for an ultimate radical break of the human from nature: nothing 'of nature' will survive the Last Judgment except humans, which suggests that humans are extranatural. I like the point on Free Will, but remember--and this is a point made by Judith Butler (but as Uebel was <A HREF="http://jjcohen.blogspot.com/2006/06/reply-to-emile-blauche.html#comment-115031310206681243" REL="nofollow">quick to remind me,</A> by many others)--the powers that be tend to give a great deal more respect for compulsion than choice (this is part of the reason I'm for immortality, bracketing off--if this is possible--questions of the persistence of the self or what comprises the self: what is more compelled than death?). Free choice is a kind of fantasy, insofar as making a free choice (let's assume that such a thing is possible) necessitates breaking with causality, necessitates not letting oneself simply be swept along by the inhuman force of the past. Here's Butler, more or less at random, from <I>Undoing Gender</I>:<BR/><BR/>Fantasy is not the opposite of reality; it is what reality forecloses, and, as a result, it defines the limits of reality, constituting it as its constitutive outside. The critical promise of fantasy, when and where it exists, is to challenge the contingent limits of what will and will not be called reality. Fantasy is what allows us to imagine ourselves and others otherwise; it establishes the possible in excess of the real; it points elsewhere, and when it is embodied, it brings the elsewhere home. (29)<BR/><BR/>Nice reference JJC. I'm fond of two flamingos, Carlos and Fernando, who <A HREF="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070521/od_afp/britainanimalsgay_070521160344;_ylt=ArAYz5gWeX2acXt.F9P79c_MWM0F" REL="nofollow">adopted a chick.</A> (Also fond of the penguins who <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/Tango-Makes-Three-Peter-Parnell/dp/0689878451/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-3583122-8198556?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181406241&sr=8-2" REL="nofollow">did something similar</A>).<BR/><BR/>I'm also fond of the sodomite medieval animals. Looking here at my Boswell, I see that the Epistle of Barnabas warned against hare-eating (makes you, in Boswell's translation, a "boy-molester"). Has something to do with the hare's natural propensity for growing a new anus every year ("For the hare grows a new anal opening each year, so that however many years he has lived, he has that many anuses." Like counting rings, I suppose.). The hyena, says the Epistle (and a lot of other works), changes its gender every year. The weasel? Prone to oral sex (perhaps that's why Giuliani <A HREF="http://www.oliverwillis.com/2007/02/audio_rudy_giul.html" REL="nofollow">hates ferrets</A> so?). There's also the viper.<BR/><BR/>Does anyone know of an article on medieval unnatural animals? I'm inclined to say that the argument against using these animals to support the 'naturalness' of same-sex sex, sexuality, or unions would run aground on the Fall: since animals (for most exegetes) started eating each other after the Fall, why not assume that sin changed them in other ways too. I see in my notes on a Lynn Thorndike article of 1956 that at least one commentator thought hyenas are born of human corpses, and I recall that such creatures--gnats, for instance--did not come into existence until after the Fall. So perhaps hyenas were, at least in certain instances, <I>also</I> extranatural?<BR/><BR/>Another bleg: I recall a medieval story on the crucifixion in which, at the moment of Christ's death, all the sodomites died and the animals started talking. I thought it was in the Golden Legend--no dice--or the Historia Scholastica (not apparently). I can look harder, but perhaps someone remembers?Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-86348783157131016652007-06-09T12:18:00.000-04:002007-06-09T12:18:00.000-04:00"The experience woot wel it is noght so.""The experience woot wel it is noght so."Nicola Masciandarohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01279665722551517693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-58560931004901620542007-06-09T11:17:00.000-04:002007-06-09T11:17:00.000-04:00Well, if we go by ducks, then we should consider r...Well, if we go by ducks, then we should consider rape to be the natural and preferred method of mating, too. Of course, if we base our sexual practices on the practices of the apes closest to us, then we may have to admit that women are not made to be monogamous. Of course, the minute we bring ape habits into it, we open up that whole can of evolutionary worms. Isn't it funny how biology can be used to explain sexuality, but omit any connection to evolution?<BR/><BR/>For the record, although I think both these guys are creepy, I think Hager wins. And not because of his sexual preferences, but rather because of his sexual practices and the way that they seem always to have been connected to an abusive power dynamic.<BR/><BR/>Which reminds me ... isn't the human brain and the ability to reason and give consent a natural thing? From a theological POV, isn't free will essentially a human thing? So biologically and theologically, shouldn't consenting adults have the right to do what they want, as long as it's really between consenting adults?Another Damned Medievalisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05231085915472400163noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-21720174834857002222007-06-09T09:23:00.000-04:002007-06-09T09:23:00.000-04:00My favorite example of the fact that perhaps natur...My favorite example of the fact that perhaps nature isn't quite as natural as people like James Holsinger make it out to be? <A HREF="http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,9865,1432991,00.html" REL="nofollow">Homosexual necrophilia among mallards</A>.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.com