When I first moved to SF in 1986 the bath-houses were just being closed. I remember walking through the Castro then with one of my medical school friends and she said, "Almost fifty percent of the men you see here today are infected." It was so sobering - that was a death sentence then. I know gay men in their fifties who lost their entire generation. You used to see men on the street with KS all the time - it was such a visible marker then.

It really forced the Castro to change - but there were some positives out of that too. ACT UP was effective for a few years before they went totally nutbar. But it did radicalize younger queers and it really changed the relationship between gays and lesbians in San Francisco (because so many lesbians wound up being caregivers). I've watched it go through so many cycles, from denial to bleakest mourning (so many funerals), to radicalizing, to the current group of young guys barebacking again.

Relativism is destroying the tools with which we fight absolutism?

I may be misunderstanding your point, but the opposite of absolutism isn't relativism. It's pluralism. Absolutism says that only one idea is good. Pluralism says that many ideas are good. And relativism says that our definition of "good" is based on our socioeconomic prejudices.

The ascendancy of poststructuralism in the 1980's coincided with the beginning of the catastrophic downturn in reading; deconstructionism's suggestion that all text is equal in its meanings and the denigration of the canon led to the devaluation of literature.

Hmm, well at least us poststructuralists can tell the difference between the concepts "coincided with" and "led to".

I mean, that's only the most glaring of the 657 ridiculous things about that sentence.

I'm almost done with Wuthering Heights. You know what would make this book better? Zombies.

P-C, I am now convinced you never sleep. Ever.

t not really here

(this tag not likely to close any time soon)

I'm almost done with Wuthering Heights. You know what would make this book better? Zombies.

Heathen! Pagan! Male!

The ascendancy of poststructuralism in the 1980's coincided with the beginning of the catastrophic downturn in reading; deconstructionism's suggestion that all text is equal in its meanings and the denigration of the canon led to the devaluation of literature.

Hmm, well at least us poststructuralists can tell the difference between the concepts "coincided with" and "led to".

(Hee, that was very funny, but...) Angus, so you don't think that suggesting all text is equal devalues literature as a whole? I'm trying to come up with analogies, but it is difficult. I am more intrigued by Solomon's premise—given that neither writing nor reading (nor the development of lit crit theory) take place in a vacuum—than that I am convinced of it.

Suppose I tell my three kids to write a sentence explaining what we did for fun, this summer. Let's say Ben says, "We drove to Maine, spent time at the beach, attended some concerts, went out to eat, and played a lot of games together." Let's say Julia says, "We went to Maine." Let's say that Chris says, "We went away."

Sure, everyone is telling the truth, so yes, they each met the requirement of giving a sentence explaining what we did. We are getting a lot more from Benjamin though, aren't we? If I suggest these three statements are equal in their meanings, aren't I devaluing the definition of "explain"? If, every time I get this variation in quality of explanations from my children, but judge them all equal in meaning, isn't my devaluing not only coinciding, but also changing the standard, such that I'm eradicating much, if not all elements of the standard.

I may be misunderstanding your point, but the opposite of absolutism isn't relativism. It's pluralism. Absolutism says that only one idea is good. Pluralism says that many ideas are good. And relativism says that our definition of "good" is based on our socioeconomic prejudices.

I have no poly-sci theory under my belt, and I took Philosophy 101 in the Fall of '85 (and mostly paid attention to cute!boy), so most of me is pretty convinced I'm over my head already, Strega. That said, and if you'll bear with me... Doesn't pluralism presuppose relativism? Also, I am unconvinced that pluralism is the opposite of absolutism. I do think both pluralism, and relativism are ideas (so I'm probably not using a political theory definition) that are, in essence, contradictory to absolutism, regardless of whether or not they're opposites. They start at different points, and go in different directions, don't they?

How would you have categorized those two statements by Solomon? To you, do they seem odd, proposed side by side?

P-C, I am now convinced you never sleep. Ever.

Because I've nearly finished a book? Because I like zombies? Because I'm up at the bright and shiny hour of ten in the morning? I don't see where this is coming from, blondie.

If I suggest these three statements are equal in their meanings, aren't I devaluing the definition of "explain"?

Thanks, Cindy. I wanted to challenge Angus as well, but my brains aren't spicy enough.

Angus, so you don't think that suggesting all text is equal devalues literature as a whole?

Well, it might, but (a) "deconstructionism" (sic) never suggested anything of the sort; and (b) the cultural prestige of "literature" has no necessary relationship to the amount of time people spend reading, let alone to the fate of Written Language itself. This last idea is particularly daft, the implication apparently being that if people stopped reading Shakespeare (which doesn't seem likely anyway) all written text would disappear from the face of the earth, we'd be left with nothing but spoken language, and civilisation would collapse. I mean, that's just totally insane every step of the way, no?

I agree with everything you said about the three children's sentences, as indeed would every literary critic or theorist who ever lived.

...although having said that, it's certainly arguable that Chris's sentence is the most explanatory, because by making the most salient point in the most concise way, it really gets to the heart of the matter. The subtext of Chris's laconic answer is: "where we went isn't really important, and what we did when we got there is merely incidental; the thing that made summer fun was that we spent it somewhere other than here." ;-)