Monday, June 16, 2008

Bookbag, with snark

Celibacy is now more necessary than ever before among the professionals, including the rabbis, because of the tremendous threat from the gay and feminist movements. Obedience to commanding truths may require the sacrifice of sexuality. [...] The defense of sacred order requires some sacrifice to tradition. Otherwise, the defense of sacred order rests on capturing the state, as it did during Calvinism and Roman Catholic triumphalism, or on a messianic hope of the messiah founding the perfect social order. —Philip Rieff, The Decline of the Officer Class
Deploying celibacy willy-nilly in order to "build character" on a societal level is weird enough, but it's strange to say that hyping the priesthood will be a setback for "the gay and feminist movements?" Does Rieff not realize that celibacy is, in some important way, queer?

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