|
In our brave pomo world, contrariwise, the personal is no longer considered dangerous or overly private. Rather the personal has become the meat and bread of public discourse and entertainment. The American President has made blowjobs the topic of conversation in so-called polite society cocktail chatter; Oprah, and Geraldo, and Jerry make the details of our boudoir adventures and indiscretions part of the entertainment feed. Sex, Politics and Religion are now Open Game.
Copulation is the engine of the future; and it has, for commentators of the human condition, the peculiar advantage of bringing out the biological best but moral worst in those who practice it. Perhaps surprisingly, given its centrality, the ethics of the subject entered Western consciousness relatively late.
The Greeks and Romans hardly alluded to the subject in their philosophical writings and in spite of the febrile scratchings of Christian fundamentalists, the two Testaments have hardly anything to say on the matter. Not unusually, the rot set in with St. Augustine who, reflecting in old age on a spectacularly, ecstatically libidinous youth,
concluded, in the course of filing his insurance policy with the Almighty, that good was in inverse proportion to pleasure.
It was a morally short but a chronologically lengthy step to forbidding the clergy from marriage which, in turn, led to the inevitable dog in the manger attitude; if I can't have sex you can't enjoy it.
The introduction in the early 16th Century of syphilis into Europe from the Americas further tightened the moral screw - to coin a phrase - and led to a much greater animus against coitus by Martin Luther, an ardent admirer of Augustine, and John Calvin,
an ardent prohibitor of everything.
The Victorian Era warning against speaking of Sex, Politics and Religion had everything to do with these being "personal" topics. Personal, as the personal is political; personal, private, in that all takes on these topics are subjective and --- so it was believed then --- therefore dangerous to reveal.
As mentioned in last week's preview page, we have already covered the first two. This issue we take on number three..... (CONTINUED INSIDE.)
At the end of yet another world population conference pitting religion against realpolitik, KEVIN CAREY looks at some of the underlying issues.
DAY ONE
We mean to generate energy throughout the 21st Century.
| MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started.
The Dailies page keeps you up on our NEWEST FEATURES! AWARDS THE WRITERS |
OTHER EDITIONS
EDITION 173
The PREVIOUS EDITION
The NEXT WEB EVENT
Best viewed on Netscape Navigator 3.0 or better.
| The WRITERS | SEARCH ENGINES | TALKBACK