tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13338143.post7155612874731987301..comments2023-05-14T03:44:54.726-05:00Comments on CourageMan: Pro-Con in The TabletCourageManhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13446189695845365897noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13338143.post-12870639675577944292007-05-07T07:02:00.000-05:002007-05-07T07:02:00.000-05:00CourageMan,Well done, a wonderful piece of surgery...CourageMan,<BR/>Well done, a wonderful piece of surgery exposing the festering tumor of blindness inherent in Mr Alison's position. Well done too for coming home, it's a delight to have you. You have been graced, but there are many who are being lost so keep up your good work.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13338143.post-68568581368681783452007-03-07T20:56:00.000-05:002007-03-07T20:56:00.000-05:00THAT was an essay by a disciple of Rene Girard?!?!...THAT was an essay by a disciple of Rene Girard?!?!<BR/><BR/>As you say, it's so bloodless and clean-scrubbed that I can only -- gape and gasp in astonishment. I know "The Tablet" and this topic is not exactly the place to describe the psychology of perversion and perversity. But still? That essay wouldn't have raised the eyebrows on my Aunt Hattie, to steal a Paglia-line.<BR/><BR/>Particularly since, if ever there was a man whose theories could make sense and do justice to destructive and self-destructive behavior, from barebacking to backrooms, it would be Girard (and therefore by extension his disciples). Apparently not.CourageManhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13446189695845365897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13338143.post-30072822180010184042007-03-06T11:52:00.000-05:002007-03-06T11:52:00.000-05:00James Allison, like Andrew Sullivan, is a perfect ...James Allison, like Andrew Sullivan, is a perfect example of what happens when defending your passions becomes the prime motivating force behind the exercise of the intellectual life. I was introduced to Allison's writings years ago because he is a disciple of Rene Girard, whom I revere. Alison wrote a couple of brilliant books reinterpreting the doctrine of the Atonement from a Girardian perspective. I was actually hopeful when he first came out, that finally a gay Catholic intellectual was going to be deal honestly (and affirmatively) with the problems of being gay and Catholic. (I was, and for that matter remain, an ambivalent conservative Christian homosexual.) But everything Allison has written since "coming out" has been trash, the most shocking betrayal of his intellectual gifts. Like most gay apologists he writes about homosexuality as if it were an intellectual abstraction, saying nothing about the sordid reality of gay life for most gay men. I e-mailed once, asking him point blank if the reason he wrote as he did was because he had been luckier than me at finding moral health on the other side of the closet door. He wrote back that in fact he had not. It sounded as if his life were every bit as sordid and disillusioning as mine, but he remained hopeful. Apparently, he is still hopeful. But I wouldn't bet the farm that his life is any less sordid, because he still writes about homosexuality as if it were an intellectual abstraction, like the Categorical Imperative, and not a moral cesspit that consumes the lives of thousands of real men and women.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16114051757497109753noreply@blogger.com