Re: Re: Re: Wilde Socialist's Hard Labour (was Re: Oscar Wilde:was O Happy Day)

[Doyle Saylor <djsaylor@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings Economists,
    Carrol Cox writes in support of Yoshie,

Carrol,
Sodomy of course was also a *heterosexual* (to use an anachronistic
expression) crime (anal intercourse).

Doyle
Much of the discussion of homosexuality is on the level you write about here
Carrol.  Some story or joke, or attitude related anecdotally.  Ultimately
there is no content to this.  It is the sort of thing that JKS was indulging
in about Wittgenstein.  Wittgenstein according to JKS liked dockworkers, but
if you read Monk's bio of Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, Ray Monk, Free Press, 1990,
page 585,
"What the coded remarks reveal is that Wittgenstein was uneasy, not about
homosexuality, but about sexuality itself.  Love, whether of a man or a
woman, was something he treasured....Sexual arousal, both homo- and
heterosexual, troubled him enormously.  He seemed to regard it as
incompatbilbe with the sort of person he wanted to be."

Page 586,
..."It would be entirely in keeping with what else we know about
Wittgenstein that he did indeed find the 'rough, young, homosexual youths"
that he discovered in the Prater fascinating, that he returned again and
again to the spot from where he could see them, and that he recorded his
fascination in diary form in his notebooks.  But it would also be entirely
in keeping with what we know that the youths themselves knew nothing at all
about his fascination, and indeed were unaware of his existence...."

Doyle
It is not clear at all that Wittgenstein was sexual with anyone.  He wasn't
engaging in that sort of work.  He was not producing that sort of social
relationship.  Yet from this murk JKS was promoting a view that Wittgenstein
was homosexual.   One cannot know in this exactly what sort of work process
is involved.  What is one doing with sex?   And this is where I fault
Yoshie.  Yoshie sees major institutions (as Foucault understands that) as
creating sexual work for people in something the way some people think the
popular media shape our moral values.  What is missing from this is how the
actual work is done.  What is being accomplished.  And  some definite
connection to brainwork itself.

Everyone is capable of sodomy and what exactly happens when people fuck.  Do
people usually choose to fuck thousands of people all the time, or a very
few people.  Why do intense feelings arise about the few one fucks.  What is
the point of different kinds of fucking relationships.  What is it about
Pakistan fucking that is different from U.S. fucking.  Why is Meiji Japan
fucking different from US. fucking.  Or Hindu different from Muslim fucking
in India.

JKS made remarks about the fault of Wilde for getting thrown in jail.
Yoshie rightly I think points out,

Yoshie,
A left-wing lawyer, however, should not blame the victim.  You must
defend your client single-mindedly, whether or not he acted wisely.

...

if there was any crime on Wilde's part, it was a crime of passion,
falling for a beautiful & yet heartless boy, who practically bullied
Wilde into filing a libel suit because he wished to use the lawsuit
to retaliate against his cruel & domineering father.  And to think
that Lord Alfred Douglas failed to visit Wilde in prison!


Doyle
But then proceeds to insert something I cannot support which is the
PostModernist claim about the origin of the identity of Homosexuality.   The
understanding I have goes against that.   Because of the obvious cultural
variation in the work process across the world in this moment.
thanks,
Doyle Saylor