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  • From: <mitchdl AT email.unc.edu>
  • To: "Percy-L@"@email.unc.edu, Literary and Philosophical Discussion <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>, "@"@email.unc.edu
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Re: [percy-l] gays, biblical authority and Percy's language theory
  • Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2003 00:34:51 -0400

Folks,
I've just now awaking from the Long Sleep of the list. Unfortunately,
I awoke into the groggy confusion of the digest message format and
spent most of my time trying to figure out what the heck was going on
(where's the coffee?).
Anyway, I got that sorted out and just read Steve's take-off on Lost
in the Cosmos--hilarious stuff. The interviewer is pitch-perfect.

This may have already come up in somewhere back in those
indecipherable digests, but I thought I'd throw out my take about
homosexuality, angelism/bestialism, and our estrangement from
ourselves.
First, divorced from the proper end of our physical/sexual nature, sex
is something to be enjoyed, experimented with, manipulated in Ye Old
Bayou Love Lab. The overly abstracted scientific mind hovers over the
varying combinations of flesh and monitors responses, etc. (all while
feeling a response within himself that makes him want to get jiggy
with the nearest nurse).
It is the fact of pregnancy, birth, paternity/maternity, student
drivers, etc., that grounds us in the mundane, connects sex to birth
(and death) and returns us to our mortality and the conditions of our
existence. Donne's lovers will find themselves changing diapers soon
enough--not as an accident, not as a choice for some charming Russian
baby, but as an outgrowth of the act itself--its very nature.

Homosexuality (particularly as a cultural phenomenon) is connected to
the aesthetic realm (the Gay Eye, guys who can match socks) because it
is intrinsically linked to the desire of all lovers--eros without time-
-false transcendence. Needless to say, writers and artists of all
stripes feel the same desire keenly.

Read this way, Lost in San Francisco is another version of one of
Percy's institutes--with happy-slappy by night (beast) and tastefully
arranged chinese landscapes by day (angel)--with the artist in place
of the scientist as abstracted intellect.

Certainly gays/lesbians are not alone in this. Our desire to separate
sex and procreation dominates most everywhere. The difference,
however, as is said over and over, is that homosexuality by its nature
separates the two. A gay man might recover meaningful selfhood to a
great extent, but it is in spite of his sexuality (or use of it); a
straight man frequently achieves 'reentry' through fruitful marriage--
as my wife might say, through submission to the nature of things (yes,
dear).

Basta,
doug

Postscript: When I started working with the Percy Project, I was
finishing grad school at Chapel Hill. I'm now slogging about in south
Alabama at the University of Mobile--a Baptist school which would be
the perfect setting for a Percy novel (Jesus Christ--Greatest Pro of
Them All).

----- Original Message -----
From: Parlin, Steven
To: 'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'
Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2003 3:09 PM
Subject: RE: [percy-l] gays, biblical authority and Percy's language
theor y --


Karey, I am imensely interested in Percy's language theory, and I hope
to resume that discussion either concurrently or a little later. But,
I am also matters of eathly concern. On the one hand, inquirey into
theory is exciting, fun, and even necessary. Let's roll up our
sleaves. But, let us not become like that scientist Percy mentions in
Lost in the Cosmos who spends all of his time in the abstacted orbit
of theory never being able to successfuly achieve re-entry.
Homsexuality, among the many deviant sexual behaviors, is one of the
most odd behaviors in the Cosmos. I think it's worthy, even necessary,
to wrestle with this...especially since it's impossible to ignore it.

in fact, this is my point...It's really only possible to entertain the
idea of homosexual marriage when we are in orbit and lost. We have
lost our moorings. The center is not holding. We really don't
understand ourselves -- We are indeed the strangest of cosmic
phenomena.


[For fun-- I adapted the below dialogue from a few excerpts in Lost
in the Cosmos]

Interviewer: Are you more confused about sexuality than any other
phenomenon in the Cosmos?
Subject: What do you mean?

Interviewer: I mean... gay marriage? C'mon.

Subject: I don't follow...what's wrong with it. It's no different than
any other marriage. It's all about love after all.

Interviewer: Love? Is sex necessary for love? And, is marriage a
necessary arrangement for love? Isn't marriage primarily for ensuring
the health and well-being of family life; that is, for having and
rasing children...obviously homosexuality...

Subject: Well...if you mean do gay lovers need to get married, no they
don't. .

Interviewer: If there's no real need, then why the fuss? Homosexuals
have been "loving" each other for centuries. Why now the need for
marriage?

Subject: Ceremony, validation, recognition...they have rights you
know. And why not?

Interviewer: Why?

Subject: Why not?

Interviewer: I asked you first.

Subject: Well...there's nothing wrong with it, and they deserve the
same benefits as other married couples.

Interviewer: Such as.

Subject: Taxes...health care... you know

Interviewer: I see.

Subject: They have rights.

Interviewer: I see. Just like two friends living together. Why not
call that a marriage too?

Subject: No...that's different.

Interviewer: How?

Subject: Well...two friends aren't a couple; they aren't in love.

Interviewer: Hmmm...so the state should only give benefits to people
who are in love.

Subject: No...not just in love...committed.

Interviewer: Friends can be committed...so can brothers...sisters...
I'm even committed to my cat.

Subject: But that's different.

Interviewer: How?

Subject: Well... homosexuals love each other in a special way.

Interviewer: You mean they please each other sexually.

Subject: No...they're "intimate".

Interviewer: I see...how do you measure that? Even though I'm not
sleeping with him, I'm probably more "intimate" with my best friend
than a lot married men and women.

Subject: It's different.

Interviewer: Perhaps....but how? Can you explain it?

Subject: No...but... I mean...It's still perfectly natural. At least
as much as heterosexual marriage.

Interviewer: Perfectly natural?

Subject: Yeah

Interviewer: Can you explain why it is that men and women exhibit
sexual behavior undreamed of among the other several million species,
with every conceivable sexual relation between persons [or animals] or
with only one person [their self] or between a male and female, or
between two male persons, or two female persons, or two males and one
femaile, or two females and one male; relationships moreover which can
implicate every orifice and appendage of the human body and which bear
no relation to the reproduction and survival of the species?

Subject: No.

Interviewer: Odd isn't it? Is this sort of behavior natural?

Subject: I dunno...but heterosexual desires...well, some of those
aren't exactly "natural" either.

Interviewer: True, heterosexuals can be just as depraved. But then
isn't that why marriage is so important for helping to keep these
behaviors in order... if for no other reason than for the sake of
rasing children?

Subect: Perhaps....but there's still nothing WRONG with homosexual
marriage.

Interviewer: That's another mattter... But what about the children?
Isn't child-reering natural AND necessary?

Subject: Yeah... but homosexuals can adopt. In fact, they can adopt
children that heterosexuals have discarded.

Interviewer: Hmm...that's an interesting point, and a shame that there
are some children who need to be adopted...but aside from not knowing
what affect this would have on children, isn't it obvious that without
heterosexuals there wouldn't be any children at all? No next
generation. No one to adopt?

Subject: Science is changing all that.

Interviewer: I see.

Subject: And, I never said that homosexual marriage should replace
heterosexual marriage.

Interviewer: No, but we still haven't figured out what homosexual
marriage means...how is it different than any two people living
together. Moreover, I was making a point. That is, I was illustrating
that marriage is necessary for raising children.

Subject: Government is changing all that.

Interviewer: I see.




-----Original Message-----
From: Karey L. Perkins [mailto:karey AT charter.net]
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2003 2:25 PM
To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion
Subject: [percy-l] gays, biblical authority and Percy's language
theory --


No -- I'm certainly no moderator! But I am fascinated by the fact
that gays and Biblical authority have garnered so much response, but
Percy's language theory doesn't get much interest? There's so much he
left unfinished and so much to investigate. If he had lived longer, I
think something tremendous might have come out of it -- like, the
answer to, what is the interpretant? He died before he could solve it.

So, here's what I would discuss if I had the choice...

What is the interpretant?

Why did he use triangles instead of triads, even when a good argument
was given against it?

What did Susanne Langer drop that he picked up? (I believe he says
what it is in one place, but I lost it somewhere)

KP


----- Original Message -----
From: Parlin, Steven
To: 'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'
Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 10:52 PM
Subject: RE: [percy-l] West Wing


Hmmm...

Because some of my replies that contradict Karey are not showing up in
my
inbox, I assumed (wrongly it seems) that I had angered her (isn't she
the
moderator?), and that she was preventing my postings from going to the
list.


I owe you an all an apology...but especially Karey.

Please forgive my presumption.

I'm an ass.

Steve



-----Original Message-----
From: David Alan Beck [mailto:dabeck AT iupui.edu]
Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 9:45 PM
To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion
Subject: Re: [percy-l] West Wing


Steve,
Why are we getting triplicates of your posting??
-DB

On Thu, 14 Aug 2003, Parlin, Steven wrote:


[NON-Text Body part not included]



David Beck


--

An archive of all list discussion is available at
http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy/hypermail

Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy
--

An archive of all list discussion is available at
http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy/hypermail

Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy


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--

An archive of all list discussion is available at
http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy/hypermail

Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy



  • Re: [percy-l] gays, biblical authority and Percy's language theory, mitchdl, 08/19/2003

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