Tag Archives: John Waters

johnwatersWe beseeched him.

You must never go there.

But he did.

We have been conditioned to think about the idea of pregnancy as some kind of imposition on a woman and her life. This idea actually runs back through Irish culture, predating even the earliest clamouring for abortion rights. It is related to the victim-status claimed by and ceded to women in Irish culture, which has long disguised the true nature of power structures in the domestic realm of Irish life.

Because women are prone to more extravagant shows of emotion than men, our society is far more willing to concede their demands than it is those of males. Not only that, but, almost regardless of how much we claim to repudiate abortion, we refuse to criticise or question the women who seek this remedy for themselves. We will condemn the abortionist who wields the knife, the politician who implements the abortion-facilitating law, the campaigner who demands the change, and so forth.

But the person who obtains the ultimate ‘benefit’ from all this activity is regarded as some kind of enfeebled innocent, upon whom the ‘necessity’ for an abortion is always thrust by unfortunate circumstances, for which the woman has no responsibility herself. Even the priests and bishops who lead the moral crusade against abortion will never speak a word against those on whose behalf abortion is being sought.

Listening to them, one would get the impression that the thousands of Irish women who go to England every year for abortions are the sorry victims of other people’s sins.

 

John Waters (above).

 

Absolutely hardcore.

More wary of female emotions than abortion (John Waters, Irish Catholic)

Pic via BMD

Thanks anon

“The best journalists are those who leave aside bogus notions of detachment and become protagonists in the things they write about.

“In this course, John Waters will apply his 30 years of experience as an analyst, reporter, columnist, author and protagonist in order to pass on his experience, perspective and approach to a new generation of journalists.

.

Diploma in Journalism with John Waters, City Colleges

 

“Speaking my mind.” What internet users seem to overlook is that the content of public discourse has not until now comprised the first-thought responses of contributors but (usually) something more considered, measured and refined.

…The general attitude – perhaps arising from a fear of seeming out of touch – seems to be that these new phenomena are unreservedly to be welcomed. Recently, there has been a soft initiative within this newspaper to persuade columnists to engage with posters who contribute to threads at the end of articles published on our web edition.

I am resisting, not because I am fearful of absorbing abuse but because I believe these platforms are about something quite different from our conventional understandings of public debate.

…Unfortunately, any attempt to enable society to focus on these questions is itself subject to the action of the problematic phenomenon, being instantly drowned in waves of abuse and derision.

 

And how’s that going down?

Ah

Internet Is Debasing Our Public Discourse (John Waters, Irish Times)

Pic via Communion and Liberation

They need their fathers, see?

The umbilical cord has been severed, but little more. Still tied to their mothers’ apron strings, more and more of our young men carry knives to announce their manhood. With their fathers cast into silence, they are starved of the wisdoms and mythologies that might sustain a healthy male existence. In our obsession with minoritarianism, we have overlooked some of the most vital constituents of a healthy community.

Adrift in the numbness that engulfs them, many of our young men now walk with an outward appearance of normality but inwardly lurch uncontrollably – from, for example, a learned piety to intense rage – all the time seeking something to provide some illusion of feeling while simultaneously keeping the numbness at bay. Sometimes the cultural conditions cause their defences to break down and another calamity ensues.

 

We Need To Understand The Rage In Our Midst (John Waters, Irish Times)

Minoritarianism?

With your ‘host’.

John Waters.

It might cross my mind that, if I said I believed that the bread and wine is transformed into the body and blood of Christ during the Consecration, I might be held up an example of someone who (ludicrously) believes in “supernatural” phenomena, whereas if I said that I rejected such a belief, my opinion might be used to bolster a predetermined sociological analysis having something to do with the relative intellectual conditions to be located in fields and streets.

All things considered, I think I might pass. (I wonder what proportion of people, when asked such a question, say that it is not a question to which you can give a yes or no?) Pope Benedict, speaking last year in Berlin, compared the reduction of reason imposed on our cultures to a concrete bunker with no windows, in which mankind affects to have created the conditions for human life.

The bunker shuts out mystery and the greater part of reason. It reduces everything to a soup of simple understandings, easily digestible by the greatest possible number – to be regurgitated in opinion surveys for the consolidation of the status quo.

Belief in Transubstantiation Not A Matter Of Yes Or No (John Waters, irish Times)

“Had a bishop, or even a prominent conservative politician or commentator, written a similar letter to a court pleading for clemency in a statutory rape case, the condemnations of that person would have been heard the length and breadth of the country for days on end.

David Norris has had to withdraw from the presidential race, but if a well-known Catholic such as Senator Ronan Mullen had written that letter, his political career would be over as well. He would be hauled before some Seanad committee or other in the manner of an Ivor Callely, and reduced to atoms.

David Norris’s supporters say he acted in a misguided way because of love. But if Senator Mullen had written a letter seeking clemency on behalf of a priest who happened also to be a childhood friend, no such excuse would be granted. He would still be destroyed.”

One Rule For Those On The Left And Another Rule For Those On The Right (David Quinn Irish Independent)

But, instead of scrutinising the facts as would be automatic if the protagonist were a bishop or some less-favoured politician, most media coverage contrived to twist and reduce the meaning of Norris’s letter to the Israeli court, and to ignore the way it contextualizes Norris’s views on paedophilia, as communicated in his interviews with Magill and the Irish Daily Mail .

In exiting the presidential campaign, Norris was made to look like some kind of martyr, done down by a combination of illiberal forces and his own romantic folly. He loved, they told us, not wisely but too well.

Does nobody think it necessary to ask Norris the kind of questions journalists would immediately and automatically ask of a bishop found to have remained silent about an episode of clerical abuse?

Pertinent Questions Ignored In Norris Case (John Waters, Irish Times)

(Photocall Ireland)