5 ms·

I am not talking about wild ideas in the literature but wild ideas in the interpretation of the literature. There is a pressure to interpret everything with the

I am not talking about wild ideas in the literature but wild ideas in the interpretation of the literature. There is a pressure to interpret everything with the lens of partisan identity politics. Eg. Most recently this surfaced outside of the literary community around Sam and Frodo's relationship in LOTR and whether or not they were gay.

thebooktocome 5y ago
People have been debating that since the sixties —- predating “identity politics” by several decades.
- pcmoney 5y ago
  - thebooktocome 5y ago
    That may be your opinion, but C. S. Lewis was not participating in some discourse on identity politics, not by any stretch of the imagination. He wouldn’t have understood the term. Your citation merely reinforces my point that queer readings of LOTR predate the current generation by several decades. It’s a historical fact.
    - pcmoney 5y ago
      Maybe not the term but the practice: “The danger of mistaking our merely natural, though perhaps legitimate, enthusiasms for holy zeal, is always great. The demon inherent in every party is at all times ready enough to disguise himself as the Holy Ghost,”
  - watwut 5y ago
    Yes, gender and race were immensly important to success and literally anything in the 60s. That decade started shortly after bus boycot and ended around the time MLK was killed. Yale, Princeton and Cornell did not allowed women at all. The identity ruled the lifes of people.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    > flagrantly infantile Why do you feel the need to utterly dismiss other points of view, straining to leave no avenue for intellectual curiosity or discussion?
    - pcmoney 5y ago
      Because it is. No claims are made now so nothing is provable/refutable. It is faux intellectualism, professional pedantry. We just debate narratives. It devolves into playground tribalism with moral relativism, theres not much to be curious about there.
bigbillheck 5y ago
> Eg. Most recently this surfaced outside of the literary community around Sam and Frodo's relationship in LOTR and whether or not they were gay. This seems to me like a perfectly legitimate question.
- jimbob45 5y ago
  >Some critics have detected in HAL's wheedling voice an undertone of homosexuality. Was that intended? >No. I think it's become something of a parlor game for some people to read that kind of thing into everything they encounter. HAL was a "straight" computer. From an interview with Kubrick in 1970[0]. The attempt to transform every male-male relationship in every piece of media to homosexuality has sadly killed the concept of friendship in media, just like it did to Xena and Gabrielle. It's okay for friendship to just be friendship. [0]http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0069.html http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0069.html
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    The artist doesn't decide the art's meaning to me (or you). Once the art is released into the wild, it's out of their hands. It's like an open source project, in a way, (or any software release): you release it and then everyone uses and modifies it in different ways, many of which you never imagined. It's not yours anymor; it belongs to the users. I think what is interesting, and most valuable, is that people will find one way or another to attack any normalization of non-cisnormal sexuality. Why is that? (Also, one example doesn't prove anything.)
    - pcmoney 5y ago
      Cool, so lit critics can start publishing interpretations of clear expressions of the gay and trans experience and claiming the gay/trans characters are closeted or secretly wish to detransition? (I hope not)
  - bigbillheck 5y ago
    I believe you'll find that this is from a different book by a different author.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wolverine876 5y ago
> Eg. Most recently this surfaced outside of the literary community around Sam and Frodo's relationship in LOTR and whether or not they were gay. I think the way to approach that is, what makes it necessarily 'wild', and why does that matter? Nonbinary sexuality is hardly political - it's been a natural part of the human race (and our ancestors and cousins) forever, long before current politics. What makes it 'wild' is that it challenges norms to even ask the question. What makes it political is that anyone challenging norms tends to have their views politicized and suppressed - grab the torches and pitchforks. Later, when the same thing becomes normalized, it becomes something the next generation of conservatives defends. The old saying is very true: 'First they laugh at you, then they say it violates the scripture, then they say they believed it all along.' (Except it omits the hatred and lynching.)

thebooktocome 5y ago

People have been debating that since the sixties —- predating “identity politics” by several decades.

pcmoney 5y ago
- thebooktocome 5y ago
  That may be your opinion, but C. S. Lewis was not participating in some discourse on identity politics, not by any stretch of the imagination. He wouldn’t have understood the term. Your citation merely reinforces my point that queer readings of LOTR predate the current generation by several decades. It’s a historical fact.
  - pcmoney 5y ago
    Maybe not the term but the practice: “The danger of mistaking our merely natural, though perhaps legitimate, enthusiasms for holy zeal, is always great. The demon inherent in every party is at all times ready enough to disguise himself as the Holy Ghost,”
- watwut 5y ago
  Yes, gender and race were immensly important to success and literally anything in the 60s. That decade started shortly after bus boycot and ended around the time MLK was killed. Yale, Princeton and Cornell did not allowed women at all. The identity ruled the lifes of people.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > flagrantly infantile Why do you feel the need to utterly dismiss other points of view, straining to leave no avenue for intellectual curiosity or discussion?
  - pcmoney 5y ago
    Because it is. No claims are made now so nothing is provable/refutable. It is faux intellectualism, professional pedantry. We just debate narratives. It devolves into playground tribalism with moral relativism, theres not much to be curious about there.

bigbillheck 5y ago

> Eg. Most recently this surfaced outside of the literary community around Sam and Frodo's relationship in LOTR and whether or not they were gay. This seems to me like a perfectly legitimate question.

jimbob45 5y ago
>Some critics have detected in HAL's wheedling voice an undertone of homosexuality. Was that intended? >No. I think it's become something of a parlor game for some people to read that kind of thing into everything they encounter. HAL was a "straight" computer. From an interview with Kubrick in 1970[0]. The attempt to transform every male-male relationship in every piece of media to homosexuality has sadly killed the concept of friendship in media, just like it did to Xena and Gabrielle. It's okay for friendship to just be friendship. [0]http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0069.html http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0069.html
- wolverine876 5y ago
  The artist doesn't decide the art's meaning to me (or you). Once the art is released into the wild, it's out of their hands. It's like an open source project, in a way, (or any software release): you release it and then everyone uses and modifies it in different ways, many of which you never imagined. It's not yours anymor; it belongs to the users. I think what is interesting, and most valuable, is that people will find one way or another to attack any normalization of non-cisnormal sexuality. Why is that? (Also, one example doesn't prove anything.)
  - pcmoney 5y ago
    Cool, so lit critics can start publishing interpretations of clear expressions of the gay and trans experience and claiming the gay/trans characters are closeted or secretly wish to detransition? (I hope not)
- bigbillheck 5y ago
  I believe you'll find that this is from a different book by a different author.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

wolverine876 5y ago

> Eg. Most recently this surfaced outside of the literary community around Sam and Frodo's relationship in LOTR and whether or not they were gay. I think the way to approach that is, what makes it necessarily 'wild', and why does that matter? Nonbinary sexuality is hardly political - it's been a natural part of the human race (and our ancestors and cousins) forever, long before current politics. What makes it 'wild' is that it challenges norms to even ask the question. What makes it political is that anyone challenging norms tends to have their views politicized and suppressed - grab the torches and pitchforks. Later, when the same thing becomes normalized, it becomes something the next generation of conservatives defends. The old saying is very true: 'First they laugh at you, then they say it violates the scripture, then they say they believed it all along.' (Except it omits the hatred and lynching.)