Thursday, January 12, 2006
What’s eating John Heard?
I reckon I’m probably the most qualified person on the planet to look under John’s bonnet, as it were – at first blush, we share so much. We’re both: country Vic boys raised as Catholics, who studied arts/law at Melbourne Uni while living at Newman College for part of this. And we’re both gay, as well as being the type of writer-blogger with probably more than the usual measure of pet dogma and high-horsery.
Indeed, illustrating one of my own favorite crank-isms – that in Australia, one’s age-group is a more powerful force of identity and bonding than anything else, is that, despite the above similarities, myself and John are polar opposites in everything else. (I’m 41, John’s 24)
Accordingly, I’ve constructed a handy compare’n’contrast table, below.
Monolithic, authoritarian bete noir
John Heard: Secular/activist gays
Paul Watson: The Vatican
Most depised age group
John Heard: Gen X (b. ~ 1963-78)
Paul Watson: Boomers (b. 1946-~61)
Idea of sexual morality
John Heard: Confess after having gay sex, in absolutely any context
Paul Watson: (Gay) sex that hurts neither self nor anyone else needs no remorse or forgiveness
What’s nobody else’s business, except maybe close friends’
John Heard: My bedroom antics
Paul Watson: My religious beliefs
What I hate being flaunted
John Heard: (other gays’) Bedroom antics
Paul Watson: Religious beliefs
Ideological compass
John Heard: Anti-Enlightenment (= pro-boomer)
Paul Watson: Enlightenment (= anti-boomer)
Fashion sense
John Heard: White-trash Cronullan 20-something in his Sunday best
Paul Watson: White-trash Cronullan Xer – think Glen Steele – but with (slightly) less hairy back
I reckon I’m probably the most qualified person on the planet to look under John’s bonnet, as it were – at first blush, we share so much. We’re both: country Vic boys raised as Catholics, who studied arts/law at Melbourne Uni while living at Newman College for part of this. And we’re both gay, as well as being the type of writer-blogger with probably more than the usual measure of pet dogma and high-horsery.
Indeed, illustrating one of my own favorite crank-isms – that in Australia, one’s age-group is a more powerful force of identity and bonding than anything else, is that, despite the above similarities, myself and John are polar opposites in everything else. (I’m 41, John’s 24)
Accordingly, I’ve constructed a handy compare’n’contrast table, below.
Monolithic, authoritarian bete noir
John Heard: Secular/activist gays
Paul Watson: The Vatican
Most depised age group
John Heard: Gen X (b. ~ 1963-78)
Paul Watson: Boomers (b. 1946-~61)
Idea of sexual morality
John Heard: Confess after having gay sex, in absolutely any context
Paul Watson: (Gay) sex that hurts neither self nor anyone else needs no remorse or forgiveness
What’s nobody else’s business, except maybe close friends’
John Heard: My bedroom antics
Paul Watson: My religious beliefs
What I hate being flaunted
John Heard: (other gays’) Bedroom antics
Paul Watson: Religious beliefs
Ideological compass
John Heard: Anti-Enlightenment (= pro-boomer)
Paul Watson: Enlightenment (= anti-boomer)
Fashion sense
John Heard: White-trash Cronullan 20-something in his Sunday best
Paul Watson: White-trash Cronullan Xer – think Glen Steele – but with (slightly) less hairy back
Comments:
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Ha ha! You must be an old boy, your post was a belter :)
1. You're too restrictive with the age-group. I dislike 60's liberal ideas, but I don't care when someone was born.
2. Your idea of sexual morality is actually the same as mine. However, I think we disagree on what constitutes self-destructive behaviour.
3. My idealogical compass is somewhat anti- and pro- and indeed post- Enlightenment: fides et ratio, etc. There is no need to retreat from intellect in the face of faith.
4. I've never been to Cronulla, but on the weekend I was swimming at Bondi and Point Piper. No clues there. I have no fashion sense, I wear ideas on my body and they sometimes keep me warm.
Release the geese...
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1. You're too restrictive with the age-group. I dislike 60's liberal ideas, but I don't care when someone was born.
2. Your idea of sexual morality is actually the same as mine. However, I think we disagree on what constitutes self-destructive behaviour.
3. My idealogical compass is somewhat anti- and pro- and indeed post- Enlightenment: fides et ratio, etc. There is no need to retreat from intellect in the face of faith.
4. I've never been to Cronulla, but on the weekend I was swimming at Bondi and Point Piper. No clues there. I have no fashion sense, I wear ideas on my body and they sometimes keep me warm.
Release the geese...
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