From: bruce@cco.caltech.edu (Bruce James Bell)
Subject: Re: the relevancy of sexuality to us
Date: 18 Sep 1993 06:54:42 GMT

mmazurek@lust.reed.edu (Matthew Daniel Mazurek) writes:

>> Am I the only SWM who likes Starhawk? I find here stuff interesting
>> enough to read. I will say that I skip sections that don't seem real
>> relevent. but big deal, I read it and use What I can. I think here
>> politics are interesting and in general I agree with a lot of them.
 
>> --Zach  zkessin@cs.brandeis.edu

Nope; I buy, read, and like her work.  _Dreaming the Dark_ was the
first one of hers I read.  The second one was _The Spiral Dance_,
which didn't impress me much, especially compared to _Dreaming the
Dark_, and I had already been introduced to paganism by reading
_Drawing Down the Moon_ and talking to pagan friends.

I got _The Fifth Sacred Thing_, and liked it very much.  I was
especially interested in seeing Starhawk's idea of utopia, and I got
plenty of it :-) Utopian fiction isn't everyone's cup of tea, though,
so if you read _Ecotopia_ and hated it, you shouldn't read _The Fifth
Sacred Thing_.  Likewise, the reverse...

One thing that bugged me about _Dreaming the Dark_, though, was when
Starhawk talked about the righteous wrath she felt as part of the
anti-nuclear movement -- the description of clean, purifying anger;
the sense of direction and purpose and empowerment (I'm paraphrasing
from memory here) that fighting for the cause gave her.

The thing that bothers me, of course (other than the fact that I
disagree with her position in general, though not necessarily on
specifics), is that it sounds suspiciously like fanaticism.  It sounds
like what the activists from Operation Rescue surely feel, and would
tell you if they had Starhawk's eloquence.  They have the same sense
of devotion to a cause they *know* is right...

And, finally, the thing that truly bugs me is that she seemed to feel
that this sense of true purpose in some sense justified the cause.  I
don't think she actually said this, it's just my impression.  Anybody
else who read _Dreaming the Dark_ want to comment?



Bruce
-- 
Bruce J. Bell                     bruce@cco.caltech.edu