Posted by Sigismund on June 15, 2007, at 17:31:25
In reply to Re: Sex , Politics and Religion. » Sigismund, posted by Dinah on June 15, 2007, at 0:24:17
In Tess of the D'Urbevilles, Thomas Hardy does what then would have been a sex scene merely by mentioning each (of the many) items of clothing Tess has taken off. It is quite erotic, and it feels as if he was pushing the boundaries at the time. There is no mention of her otherwise in this piece, so it is clever and affecting.
When I think of shamelessness I never *meet* anyone like this, I encounter them through the media. They are our celebrities, our politicians, and to some extent our media commentators. When I was growing up there was Richard Burton and Eliizabeth Taylor, who moved in an entirely different universe. Politicians like JFK and Lyndon Johnson at least liked to keep to the proprieties. They were happy enough to lie, but not so happy if the public knew they were doing so (quite unlike today). In other words they respected the standards they did not always keep. Much like, now that I think of it, the religion I grew up with. None of the men believed. They came back from Communion with a strange look on their faces that I now realise was embarrassment. I asked my mother what they were all doing up there and she said something about a body, so I thought that it had something to do with sex. But everyone agreed on the general standards. They were all middle class, they'd been through the war, and they were relieved thet things were so good and their desires rested there. That peculiar combination of very high incomes and New Age religion would have astonished them.
I shall have to read David Runciman's book on the history of hypocrisy in political thought from Hobbes to Orwell when it comes out. In the meantime there is "The Politics of Good Intentions. History, Fear and Hypocrisy in the New World Order".In the 70s everyone (at university, who had nothing better to do) was talking about alienation and powerlessness, and I assume that's where empowerment came from. All of a sudden fathers who pulled out the chair or opened the door for their wives (to say nothing of their daughters) were liable to withering scorn. With this kind of stuff you never know what causes what. It's just continual corruption and renewal in the turbulence of history.
Of course some of us are too ashamed to show our faces, and I certainly sympathise, having felt like this myself.
poster:Sigismund
thread:763272
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20070523/msgs/763425.html