Saturday February 18, 2012
ADDENDUM. A day late, sorry, but because I hate to think that in the event of JS-Kit's demise we would lose Michael Bérubé's epic response to my plea for analysis of young Mr. Poulos' recent article on the lady problem, it is reproduced here:
Thank you for summoning me, Mr. Edroso! Though in the future I would prefer that you use the MLA "President-signal," a powerful beam that casts the silhouette of Edward Said over the cityscape of Manhattan (don't ask how. No, really, don't.)
I have determined, on the basis of my thirty years of advanced (and, on occasion, national-security seekrit) literary study, that Mr. Poulos' work is indeed modern, perhaps on the very cusp of the post-modern. To wit, forthwith, and without further ado, my textual evidence:
To the growing discomfort of many, that framework hasn’t come anywhere close to answering even the most basic questions about what women are for — despite pretty much universal recognition across the political spectrum that a civilization of men, for men, and by men is no civilization at all, a monstrously barbaric, bloody, and brutal enterprise. Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia a few inherently meaningful implications about what women are for flow naturally from this wise and enduring consensus, but no faction of conservatives or liberals has figured out how to fully grasp, translate, and reconcile them in the context of our political life it is established beyond all doubt what many deny that man in Possy of Testew and Cunard that man in Essy that man in short that man in brief in spite of the strides of alimentation and defecation wastes and pines wastes and pines and concurrently simultaneously ironically, one of the best places to look for a way out of the impasse is the strain of left feminism that insists an inherently unique female “voice” actually exists that’s a claim about nature what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the strides of physical culture the practice of sports such as tennis football running cycling swimming flying floating riding gliding conating camogie skating tennis of all kinds dying flying sports of all sorts autumn summer winter winter tennis of all kinds hockey of all sorts penicillin and succedanea much good would come from a broader recognition that women have a privileged relationship with the natural world. That’s a relationship which must receive its social due — if masculinity in its inherent and imitative varieties (including imitation by quasi-feminized males of quasi-masculinized females!) is not to conquer the world.
Honestly, Roy, I think this pretty much speaks for itself. Modern, postmodern -- it speaks to us all.
I don't know about you, but I feel much improved by Professor B's address. We should have him at the Lyceum more often.
Tbogg got on this, and also noticed Poulos' follow-up. I refer you to SEK of Lawyers Guns & Money for a close read of that -- I only note Poulos' close:
If my claim is doomed to be met with an avalanche of contempt, it seems likely that in our lifetimes social conservatism as we know it will be mocked, despised, and shamed right out of existence.
Hot diggity damn!
You might be deeply uncomfortable with that even if you do hope to see an America without a social conservative movement.
It would cut into my sources of material, but in this ObamaHitler Socialist Republic we all must make sacrifices for the greater good. Plus there'll always be something to mock, despise, and shame; it's not like Jonah Goldberg retired.