|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
 Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:36 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
| Satori wrote: |
| Understand this, you cannot "create" gay people. They are either gay or not. And increasing acceptance is not going to mean a rise in the number of gay people. The species is in no danger of dying out because we fail to reproduce ourselves. |
I already understand this well enough, Satori. I do allege nor nor have I alleged that they are aiming "to create more gay people."
What they are doing is playing with normative, hegemonic paradigms. It has been going on, consciously, since at least the 1960s.
They are arguing that everything is socially-constructed. The hard sciences went first with Kuhn; then the social sciences followed -- Foucault and Derrida. They have gotten into this on the 190-page Darwin thread but are unable to articulate it beyond various crudisms and outright insults. But, the bottom line: postmodernism indeed reduces Darwinism, biology, chemistry, psychiatry, sociology, and most other bases of knowledge to the same level as a religion like Christianity: competing knowledge/power constructs, neither of them more or less valid than any other.
So those who are now carrying this banner forward on sexuality are not aiming "to create more gay people," even if many have adopted a pretty severe heterophobic posture. What they are doing is attacking not only gender ("man," "woman," for example) but sex ("male," "female") as socially-constructed.
Many, including Elliston, who I cite above, have been arguing that heterosexual relations are socially-constructed and therefore unnatural. Again, they are not looking "to create more gay people" (this is overly-simplistic and it attempts to set me up as a homophobic straw man, by the way, and I would appreciate it if you would not do that again). But they do believe that "hetero" and "gay" are just that: socially-constructed, or as you say: "created." They are in fact looking to open up the doors so that everyone can and will move in and out of heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, transsexuality, and all other forms of sexual expression at will, with no labels attached to their behavior, and in a wholly androgynous environment, populated by, for lack of a better example, "Pat" and his or her friends.
So I think they go too far. Only "males" and "females" can reproduce. This is not arbitrarily socially-constructed -- or unnatural, either, for that matter.
There is room in the universe, then, for what we call "homosexuality," and we do not have to overthrow what we call "heterosexuality" (and what these critics see as a zero-sum, either/or hegemonic issue) to achieve tolerance/coexistence. I know that most of us here would agree with this. What I would like to impress upon you is that many who write such books as the one OP mentions do not. If you do not think so, then I think you need to start actually looking into their theoretical literature and listening to what they are proposing... |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
|
| Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:57 pm Post subject: ... |
|
|
Satori,
While you're on the topic, ask Gopher what the feminists are doing to our soil. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
| Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 4:00 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Do not bother, Satori. Nowhere Man defines his position nine times out of ten in reference to whatever mine is. That is his compass.
I know: pathetic. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
|
| Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 4:01 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Gopher wrote: |
| They are arguing that everything is socially-constructed. The hard sciences went first with Kuhn; then the social sciences followed -- Foucault and Derrida. They have gotten into this on the 190-page Darwin thread but are unable to articulate it beyond various crudisms and outright insults. But, the bottom line: postmodernism indeed reduces Darwinism, biology, chemistry, psychiatry, sociology, and most other bases of knowledge to the same level as a religion like Christianity: competing knowledge/power constructs, neither of them more or less valid than any other. |
And what would be the point of articulating this insight to interlocutors like Meegook and Rteacher? It does always amuse me though watching religious conservatives fall back on arguments developed by radical postmodernists while they simulataneously reject postmodernism.
Last edited by gang ah jee on Fri Nov 17, 2006 4:07 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Moldy Rutabaga
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea
|
| Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 7:29 pm Post subject: |
|
|
It's a controversial topic, and a few of you have your axes to grind which don't relate to the OP. I'll put in my two cents; my post may be no better.
From a theoretical view, there may certainly be an academic movement to question sex itself as a social construction. I agree that it may not be necessarily a homosexual agenda, but rather one to deemphasize heterosexuality as a norm. It reminds me of the feminists who classify all hetero-sex as rape. While these sorts of movements can be cancerous to academia if made into dogma, I'm not sure what effect they can have on the rest of the world. If we built a perfect society where there was no male-female sex, it would soon die out, replaced by less skittish societies who can reproduce. Thus I'm not worried about sex between genders being discouraged or demonized; with 6 billion people on earth and growing, it doesn't seem to be going out of style.
| Quote: |
| As a parent, I might be more than a little disgruntled if my kid decided to grow a coat of black feathers and head out to sea in the South Atlantic. There are limits to my tolerance. |
Hehe  . From a practical view, it's just a book about some penguins. No one has made it a class text. No one is suggesting we show third graders Caligula and give them practical exams on it. I wonder if these "homosexual overtones" in the penguins have any grounding at all; maybe the same people would find them in Three men and a baby.
From a religious view, I'm hesitant to say anything because the invective on this has been very mean lately on this forum from both sides. I think that church groups would be advised to ignore this book; making a big deal out of a stupid penguin book will only feed people's impression that we're all fanatics who hate sex. I know some posters are already forming sarcastic replies to that statement, but I write it regardless. It is not that children's education is unimportant, but I think Christians could do a lot more to help people than to run around with picket signs. A country full of homelessness, single mothers, and poverty and these people are worrying about penguins and Harry Potter.
Ken:> |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Grimalkin
Joined: 22 May 2005
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 4:17 am Post subject: |
|
|
Satori wrote
| Quote: |
But a book like this is not designed to produce more gay people. They are designed to produce heterosexual people who do not think it is vile, shocking, repulsive, improper, or immoral be to be gay. It's about increasing acceptance. Understand this, you cannot "create" gay people. They are either gay or not. And increasing acceptance is not going to mean a rise in the number of gay people. The species is in no danger of dying out because we fail to reproduce ourselves.
|
Well said! This is the crux of the matter. Most of the people who object to this book do so from a fear that it is an attempt by gays to recruit impressionble straight youngsters into a gay lifestyle by making it seem acceptable. There is a name for that fear........HOMOPHOBIA!
As Satori pointed out, the real motivation is a lot less sinister...it is to promote tolerance and acceptance......and not to convert.
Gopher wrote
| Quote: |
They are in fact looking to open up the doors so that everyone can and will move in and out of heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, transsexuality, and all other forms of sexual expression at will, with no labels attached to their behavior, and in a wholly androgynous environment, populated by, for lack of a better example, "Pat" and his or her friends.
|
If they are indeed seeking to do this they are being ridiculous. People do not choose their sexuality and an intellectual argument about the nature of sexuality is not going to make a straight person jump into bed with a same sex partner or a gay person with a partner of the opposite sex...
...(or if it does then clearly they were right all along and sexuality is just a social construct however, I for one won't be betting on that one).
Equally to get upset about the machinations that they are getting up to as Gopher is, is just as ludicrous. If you don't believe that sexuality is a social construct then you have nothing to worry about. It's not vulnerable on that account. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 7:22 am Post subject: ... |
|
|
| No, Gopher, DO tell people about the feminist agenda and women getting pregnant just so they can have abortions. Its makes a nice bookend with the "them" you're fearmongering about here. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 7:42 am Post subject: |
|
|
[quote="Porter_Goss"]
| Adventurer wrote: |
One could object to teaching concepts
of sexuality at a young age whether it is of a hetero
of homosexual nature. |
Does your copy illustrate sexual acts between
two consenting adult penguins? For all we know the
two male penguins are brothers, would the fact that
they are caring for offspring make them a gay couple?
[Porter_Goss, your name reminds me of math. From what I read of the article, the penguin book talked about love between the two male penguins. That is when the parent in the article put the book down. Again, the two males were in a situation where there were no female penguins. You stated that sexual relations between males in prisons are all about dominance and different? I think you are going based on the movies.
Some of them do have it down to dominance and some do not probably. They have no females around. These penguins had no females around and were given a fertilized egg. Why was that book written for children? Who put it in the library? Obviously, it is to condition children in a certain way. You may think it is a legitimate way of social condition, but the parents are objecting. I didn't make such a huge leap. I read the article and the parents commenting on the story she read, and what was happening with the penguins. No, there is nothing graphic. I mean you could have a story with bi-sexual animals, I suppose. The question is would it be proper reading for children of a young age? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Satori
Joined: 09 Dec 2005
Location: Above it all
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 11:10 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Gopher wrote: |
| Satori wrote: |
| Understand this, you cannot "create" gay people. They are either gay or not. And increasing acceptance is not going to mean a rise in the number of gay people. The species is in no danger of dying out because we fail to reproduce ourselves. |
I already understand this well enough, Satori. I do allege nor nor have I alleged that they are aiming "to create more gay people."
What they are doing is playing with normative, hegemonic paradigms. It has been going on, consciously, since at least the 1960s.
They are arguing that everything is socially-constructed. The hard sciences went first with Kuhn; then the social sciences followed -- Foucault and Derrida. They have gotten into this on the 190-page Darwin thread but are unable to articulate it beyond various crudisms and outright insults. But, the bottom line: postmodernism indeed reduces Darwinism, biology, chemistry, psychiatry, sociology, and most other bases of knowledge to the same level as a religion like Christianity: competing knowledge/power constructs, neither of them more or less valid than any other.
So those who are now carrying this banner forward on sexuality are not aiming "to create more gay people," even if many have adopted a pretty severe heterophobic posture. What they are doing is attacking not only gender ("man," "woman," for example) but sex ("male," "female") as socially-constructed.
Many, including Elliston, who I cite above, have been arguing that heterosexual relations are socially-constructed and therefore unnatural. Again, they are not looking "to create more gay people" (this is overly-simplistic and it attempts to set me up as a homophobic straw man, by the way, and I would appreciate it if you would not do that again). But they do believe that "hetero" and "gay" are just that: socially-constructed, or as you say: "created." They are in fact looking to open up the doors so that everyone can and will move in and out of heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, transsexuality, and all other forms of sexual expression at will, with no labels attached to their behavior, and in a wholly androgynous environment, populated by, for lack of a better example, "Pat" and his or her friends.
So I think they go too far. Only "males" and "females" can reproduce. This is not arbitrarily socially-constructed -- or unnatural, either, for that matter.
There is room in the universe, then, for what we call "homosexuality," and we do not have to overthrow what we call "heterosexuality" (and what these critics see as a zero-sum, either/or hegemonic issue) to achieve tolerance/coexistence. I know that most of us here would agree with this. What I would like to impress upon you is that many who write such books as the one OP mentions do not. If you do not think so, then I think you need to start actually looking into their theoretical literature and listening to what they are proposing... |
Are the people who wrote the book the same "they" that are supposedly trying to break down the so called socially constructed view of sexuality? Really? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 12:43 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Yes, really.
In any case, I have voiced my objections, which are informed by my own reading of the contemporary theoretical literature on "sexuality." I know what it is and I know where it is heading (or trying to, at least). I have reported this here. As always, you may take it or leave it. I can easily predict which one that will be, by the way. You and the others who refuse to listen to what I am saying (or what Elliston has said, as I cited her above) out of ideological slant, object violently -- or simply ridicule just for the sake of ridiculing, like my friend Nowhere Man. You just know what is so and you can Google any op-ed you want to prove it. That is, unfortunately, the extent of your knowledge on this and other issues.
And by the way, regarding Grimalkin's assertion/lecture on "people do not choose their sexuality": I agree. However, and for the last time, the cutting-edge of feminism, women's studies, and sexuality theory does not. They believe this is something than can and should be tweaked. They are indeed aiming to do just that -- that is, recondition the species. So you should be sure you know who you are arguing for or against here.
However this may be, it is clear that you are open to some kinds of information (and especially mythical U.S. govt conpsiracies) and irrevocably closed to others (like the real one I attempted to show you here). No real surprises. Carry on, gentlemen. Go back to your comfortable position of seeing this as a simple homophobic event... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Grimalkin
Joined: 22 May 2005
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 4:33 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Gopher wrote
| Quote: |
| And by the way, regarding Grimalkin's assertion/lecture on "people do not choose their sexuality": I agree. However, and for the last time, the cutting-edge of feminism, women's studies, and sexuality theory does not. They believe this is something than can and should be tweaked. They are indeed aiming to do just that -- that is, recondition the species. So you should be sure you know who you are arguing for or against here. |
Given that you agree with my 'assertion/lecture' that people do not choose their sexuality what does it matter what 'tweaking' they do. Clearly you can't believe it will have any effect. To fret about it then as you are doing seems irrational. It is this kind of irrational fear that leads people to suspect homophobia. Leave them to their 'tweaking'. I'm sure there are a lot more harmful things they could be up to. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Grimalkin
Joined: 22 May 2005
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 4:47 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Adventure wrote
| Quote: |
| Why was that book written for children? Who put it in the library? Obviously, it is to condition children in a certain way. |
I am quite sure that the book is intended to arm children in some way against the idiotic belief that homosexuals choose a lifestyle that is a deliberate and sinful rejection of God's plan. When they are introduced to such a hateful idea later on they may perhaps remember the true story of the two male penguins that loved each other and realise that homosexuality occurs in animals as well and not just sinful humans. As for your idea that one of the penguins has chosen the other to be his 'biatch' as male prisoners do in the absense of the opposite sex, male homosexuality amongst penguins is well documented in the presence of other (and I'm sure extremely attractive in their own right) female penguins as well. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Moldy Rutabaga
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 5:17 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Many of us are not ignorant of these intellectual currents. I'm just not sure such arguments apply to this story. It's a story about two penguins who raise a chick because there's no mothers around; if that's stated in the book, doesn't this argue that having a mother is the normal arrangement?
I wonder how many posters here have children and have read some children's books. Does Green Eggs and Ham promote food fetishes and wearing underwear in public, all a part of an agenda to de-clothe? What were those seven dwarves doing living together before Snow White came along-- and they're not even interested in her. And that Donald Duck-- raising three boys and caring for them while going around bottomless, all with this "Daisy" cover-- there's an example of sexual conditioning if we've ever seen one!
Ken:> |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 5:34 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Moldy Rutabaga wrote: |
I wonder how many posters here have children and have read some children's books. Does Green Eggs and Ham promote food fetishes and wearing underwear in public, all a part of an agenda to de-clothe? What were those seven dwarves doing living together before Snow White came along-- and they're not even interested in her. And that Donald Duck-- raising three boys and caring for them while going around bottomless, all with this "Daisy" cover-- there's an example of sexual conditioning if we've ever seen one!
Ken:> |
Come on, Ken.
I agree that, for example, when we see things like feminists attack Disney because The Lion King allegedly promotes a sexist view, this is absurd.
But you must recognize that, with respect to the seven dwarves, Donald Duck, and these two penguins, we are in a different eras... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
