"Lame, gay and churchy"...
Abbott lame, gay churchy loser, says his daughter.
The headline for this article in today's Age, seems to suggest that Tony Abbott's daughter went to the press with this accusation against her father. In fact, reading between the lines, it seems that what really happened was that Abbott himself related his daughter's summation, in an attempt to show how difficult it can be sometimes for parents when they try to talk to their children about drugs.
That is an important issue, but not what interests me in the article. What interests me is the reaction from David Moutou, the "developmental manager" of a "gay youth support group" called "Twenty10".
David Moutou, said ''gay'' was not synonymous with ''bad'' and was disappointed it would be repeated that way by a respected member of Parliament.Quite. I know a time when it used to mean "happy".
''Young people in their school environment are hypersensitive to the use of words, like 'gay', with negative connotations,'' he said.
But wait a moment! Where are the disability rights activists? Shouldn't they be objecting to the use of "lame" as a term of derogration?
AND, of course, what about "churchy"?
Of course, being "churchy" IS an acceptable term of abuse, with all the "negative connotations" you could ask for in this day and age. Just ask Catherine Deveny.
I tell you, I am seriously considering whether to continue my subscription to The Age very much longer. I guess I will, though. After all, what is the alternative?
posted by Schütz @ 1:50 am
25 Comments
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25 Comments:
Joshua, that is precisely how my children use it. Time for the homoactivists to find another euphemism.
Do they say "You're so churchy"?
The Australian or the for those of North of the Border, the Sydney Morning Herald which is Fairfax but without the slant of the Age.
Actually I read them both online, and only very rarely wander across to the Age.
I have decided to boycott the Saturday AGE as this is where Deveny exercises her ego and paganism quite freely. sometimes i purchase THE GUARDIAN or look at the Economist on line.
Interestingly, "queer" has not acquired this sense - maybe because it used in a very aggressive way by activists. I suspect that "fairy", "homo", "poofter", "gay", et al. have an onomatopoeic sound that seems somewhat effeminate, whereas "queer" does not.
I'm with you Schutz! I'm sick of The Age, it's taken the place of the Herald Sun - the paper of the wannabe intelligensia.
Same thing, really!
Actually, there was a point in time when "queer" tended to be used by analytic philosophers to describe certain things...
The Australian is good – but (forgive me Perry) I really am not interested about what happens in WA.
No need for apologies, David. Nothing ever happens in Perth.
P: ... Preteens and younger adolescents are notoriously homophobic, precisely because they are a bit baffled by sexuality and unsure of their own sexual identity
S: Or a little more in touch with nature…
So you reckon it's in our nature to be 'notoriously homophobic'? mmmm
Be careful what you wish for in terms of newspapers. Try living in one-newspaper (Murdoch) town!
. . . but they stopped using the term because they were afraid people would think they were gay.
Ahahahah!
Winner!
I can't stand the analytics. Well, analytic Thomism is alright, but it's still too much about logical positivism. I blame Kant.
omg happened again. after 'so (insert pejorative comment here)'
Please fix my mess David! :D
Though some of the young peeps I know are not in the slightest bit fazed by being labelled "gay" regardless of their orientation.
The woman is demented. Or possessed. Needs prayer.
Yes.
In any case, you should read Belloc's "The Free Press." It'll change how you feel about papers altogether.
Good. Maybe then we can reclaim it to mean "happy."
Criticism is fine, but what we're talking about is not merely criticism, but just out and out ranting, raving, lies, hate, foaming at the mouth hysteria etc. By people who are paid in like $$$$ to spew forth this muck.
It's the appalling bias of the MSM that inflames even the most patient Catholic heart.
I should have written "roused up *from* apathy". :-)
Clarification: What I meant by saying I am a materialist, and Newman wasn't, is a matter of the extent to which one takes the external world as reliable.
I can't say I am intimately familiar with analytics after the Geachscombes, but I do think the analytics are on to something, in the same sense that Hume was on to something, and Wittgenstein. After all, the "analytics" are continuing the work of the medieval logicians, reviving study of language as fundamental to philosophy, getting around the monstrous girth of the tradition of bad metaphysics that plagued philosophy for almost half a millenium....
The comment was directed as 'S' (Schütz) ... er ... silly! ;-)
PS: You may be interested in this view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8
I didn't say Hume purified metaphysics. I did say that Hume was onto something and I stand by it. Hume was writing in the context of the triumph of mechanistic philosophy.
Hume is not to be read as a historian, but as a philosopher. And in that respect, he was heir to four hundred odd years of bad philosophy. That allowed for, what he says is utterly brilliant, I think. Dialogues on Natural Religion is a brilliant exercise in exposing bad mechanistic natural theology. Aquinas is not touched by it, nor Christianity proper. But Paley was, and good riddance. Likewise, his attack on the concept of causation again reveals that, taken by itself, secondary causality hasn't got a leg to stand on. Hume on miracles is a brilliant attempt to explain how faith relate to miracles, and in a prescient way, answer present tendencies to expect a certain type of miracle as "proof." Hume on Induction and reasoning is a great insight into the probabilistic formation of belief. I am not saying Hume is to be accepted wholesale. But at the very least, he is in Elizabeth Anscombe's phrase "the most brilliant of the sophists". But I think he is a lot more than that.
You say Descartes is bad. Well, yes, Hume would go along with that.
As far as biases go, I myself am rather fond of Hume partly because Newman in many ways follows upon and Christianizes Hume in something like the same way Aquinas christianizes Averroes, partly because unlike Kant or Descartes, he genuinely does point toward St.Thomas, and lastly because my own interest in philosophy came from an essay I wrote as an undergraduate trying to justify Aquinas to a secular audience, which took the "Natural Religion" as its basis.
Belatedy, I agree, Tony! The Age is becoming quite tabloid ! I prefer The Australian (though we subscribe to The Age - my spouse's choice)
I am a Sydneysider by origin (and ongoing affiliation) , but live in Melbourne. The SMH is much more balanced and outward looking.
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