Queer Theory & Futurism

[Michael Bailey]

>Edelman enlarges the reach of
> contemporary psychoanalytic theory as he brings it to bear not only on
> works of literature and film but also on such current political
> flashpoints as gay marriage and gay parenting. Throwing down the
> theoretical gauntlet, No Future reimagines queerness with a passion
> certain to spark an equally impassioned debate among its readers.
>


gosh, what a wrongheaded project!


>Edelman argues that
>the child, understood as innocence in need of protection, represents
>the possibility of the future against which the queer is positioned as
>the embodiment of a relentlessly narcissistic, antisocial, and
>future-negating drive. He boldly insists that the efficacy of
>queerness lies in its very willingness to embrace this refusal of the
>social and political order. In No Future, Edelman urges queers to
>abandon the stance of accommodation and accede to their status as
>figures for the force of a negativity that he links with irony,
>jouissance, and, ultimately, the death drive itself.

that "death drive" thing, now honestly, isn't that one of those
big bizarro ideas that once-eminent scientists conceive in their dotage?

The "efficacy of queerness"??
Scrooge without Tiny Tim?

These are the notions of queerness that the people hold who
voted for that medieval Proposition in California.

a-and, weepers, why would "the rest of us" want to build in
protections and civil liberties
for, well, basically, a nihilist faction?

Why would a queer, who, c'mon, simply is somebody who has
the urge for somebody of the same sex to rock their private parts -
why, I say why, would that desire have any connection at all to
Thanatos or preclude kindness toward children or respect for other
people's families?  Why would any sane person want to rock the boat that way?

No good reason, imho!
Lots of good reasons not!