“The paint in the public areas is still fresh – always has been” (Maynard 71).
– morality seen through historical development: a veneer, ultimately surface level, yet most visible
– Foucault exploring Catholic ‘confessional discourse’
move towards somewhat more secular “purity” reform movement
– moral coding of language in early distinctions of “the mental, moral and physical expression of sex”(StM 31)
– the idea of a life in excess
– surface level morality structure of prevailing notions characterizing men as sexually lustful/aggressive versus the apparent sexual passivity of females
– true happiness of women defined by the state to coincide w/ state happiness
– “Race Suicide”: declared “physical and moral rottenness” of the poor (who might be lucky enough to be reformable but most seen on the surface level as beyond redemption) as compared to the most moral citizens who have the “most comfortable homes, the largest dwellings, and abodes of the most affluent and respectable in any city … best credit … most influential in business … men who direct and control the commerce of the world” (Bliss 45)
– The so-called “boring old white males who dominated the traditional history”
– Immorality assumed to be a natural consequence of gender mingling in workplace structure
– “Canadianization” of immigrants (connected w/ race suicide), establishing rule over non-English elements, called “moral regulation reformation”
– Symbolic emphasis on whiteness, cleanliness and purity, “vigour of the race”, “loss of semen is the loss of blood”
– Sexual relations among students as “evidence” of people in authority’s racist beliefs about the “sexual primitiveness” of Native peoples (and non-Anglo-Saxon people in general)
– Tendency in sex-scientific literature to blame “foreign” cultures for perversion
– Non-heterosexual relationships considered “a weakening of moral fibre, a waste of mawkish sentimentality”
“Non-sensitive positions” → not a moral position but rather a cohesion/se(curity issue
- Constructing the relations of “the closet” through exclusion
– Homophobia reducing structural features of oppression to misguided prejudice or irrational fear – moral character of homosexuals tied to pedophilia, assault, abuse, etc. but these terms are not attached to the term ‘heterosexual’ thus ensuring the hegemony in place continues
“Hockey pays the price for gay tolerance” → emphasis on fear-induced effect w/r/t tolerating things that Canadians supposedly “shouldn’t”
– Prostitution, and non-normative sexualities and activities “fundamentally an economic rather than a moral issue” → connection to cases of Oscar Wilde and Maple Garden as being transactionary in nature (even “abnormal” sexuality is transformed through capital)
– “Morality Department” as just a form of regulation and control: a power structure, not a moral structure (otherwise why the preoccupation with only sexuality as related to “moral” policing?)
– “This suggests an important linkage between social purity agitation, the municipal State response, a heightened media focus, and stepped up police activity.”
“Sexuality was not just an index of moral behaviour, however; it was also an aesthetic marker” (StM intro) and the state was able to make use of both. Nationalism’s control on sexuality allows sexual dimension while supporting a system of moral classification of citizenry – mainly the privileged center (still: requires suppression of ambiguities to create illusion of coherence and commonality) → Nationalism-infused sexuality allows for greater complexity yet remains within the dominant power systems (patriarchal, Anglo-Saxon) of before.
Contemporary Examples:
(i) the “vagina” gaff (moral coding in language, projection of morality from patriarchal power onto women) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2159911/Lisa-Brown-Michigan-lawmakers-silenced-using-word-vagina-abortion-debate.html
(ii) control of contraception (Jon Stewart video Daily Show clip 02/13/12, section ‘The Vagina Ideologues’) http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/daily-show-vagina-ideologues http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-february-13-2012/the-vagina-ideologues—sean-hannity-s-holy-sausage-fest
(iii) the so-called “same-sex tourist marriages” and how the arguments have become predominantly legal, not moral, in their nature http://www.globalnews.ca/validity+of+same-sex+tourist+marriages+continues+to+hang+critics+warn/6442668049/story.html
(iv) Gloria Taylor, assisted suicide issue, regulating bodies http://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters/article/1215331–assisted-suicide
– the morality center is now secular in nature and only the bedrock for ensuring the continued cohesion of society by resisting what many see as a potential morale problem and also uneasiness with the concept of death itself (especially when chosen). Issue: Do we have control of our rights? Do we have a say in defining them? (“protecting the vulnerable” as fear-inducing language, a kind of moral coding)
– “The court has recognized that the government has no place at the bedside of seriously ill Canadians who have made firm and considered decisions about the amount of suffering to endure at the end of life and the level of care they will or will not receive in their final days.” (echoes Trudeau’s line) http://www.vancouversun.com/news/judge+strikes+down+banning+assisted+suicide+Canada/6793319/story.html