Book Reviews : DIDI HERMAN, The Antigay Agenda: Orthodox Vision and the Christian Right. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997, 242 pp., $24.95 (hbk), $15.00 (pbk)
| Published date | 01 December 1998 |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399800700412 |
| Author | Martin Durham |
| Date | 01 December 1998 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
584
the
impersonal,
not
’residual,
fragile,
fugitive,
or
interstitial’
(p.
45).
In
another
take
on
the
classically
disfavoured
private,
Krishan
Kumar
explores
the
changing
concept
of
home.
In
a
fascinating
essay,
he
shows
how
this
paradigmatically
private
location
is
also
shaped
by
its
separation
from
the
public,
assuming
many
’public’
or
hotel-like
features
in
modern
society.
The
effect
has
been
to
promote
individualism
at
the
expense
of
the
nuclear
family,
which
has
cracked
under
the
strain
of
the
responsi-
bilities
assigned
to
it,
engendering
a
malaise
that
is
reflective
of
our
public
life.
Thus,
each
time
that
we
think
we
are
getting
close
to
substantive
meanings
of
public
and
private,
we
either
find
that
they
are
evanescent
or
we
are
suddenly
looking
in
a
mirror.
Despite
the
sometimes
frustrating
ambiguities
inherent
in
public
and
private,
the
authors
generally
argue
against
their
conflation.
Jean
Cohen
uses
the
abortion
debate
in
the
United
States
to
reconceptualize
the
notion
of
’privacy’,
a
very
particular
under-
standing
of
’the
private’.
Although
she
affirms
the
orthodox
feminist
view
that
the
public/private
dichotomy
has
operated
to
perpetuate
gender
inequality,
she
argues
that
there
is
a
good
inherent
in
the
’paradox
of
privacy’,
for
it
is
necessary
to
respect
individual
differences
and
to
allow
for
the
development
of
intact
identities.
The
embodied
self,
which
includes
procreative
issues,
is
crucial
to
identity.
Privacy,
Cohen
argues,
should
therefore
replace
property
as
the
’symbolic
principle
around
which
the
key
complex
of
personal
civil
rights
are
articulated’
(p.
162).
Jean
Elshtain,
cocking
a
snook
at
the
subjective
orientation
of
postmodern
thought,
expresses
concern
that
the
personal
has
collapsed
into
the
public.
She
describes
’The
Displacement
of
Politics’
(her
title)
as
’a
dynamic
that
fuses
public
and
private
imperatives
in
a
way
that
is
both
volatile
and
dangerous’
(p.
171).
Accordingly,
she
is
critical
of
the
implications
of
the
well-known
feminist
slogan
’the
personal
is
political’
which,
she
claims,
in
contradis-
tinction
to
Cohen,
leads
to
overpersonalization
and
a
distorted
focus
on
identity.
While
she
acknowledges
the
permeability
of
the
public/private
distinction,
the
col-
lapse
of
the
dualism
can
only
compromise
the
possibility
of
a
democratic
politics.
As
recognized
by
many
theorists,
the
realm
of the
social,
or
civil
society,
puts
paid
to
the
idea
of
a
dichotomy,
for there
are
large
tracts
of
social
endeavour
that
are
neither
fully
public
nor
fully
private.
The
characteriszation
is
also
apt
to
change
with
politi-
cal
shifts,
as
illustrated
by
responses
to
homosexuality
and
AIDS.
If
one
wishes
to
be
analytical
rather
than
cope
with
blurred
boundaries,
we
should
talk
about
a
tri-
chotomy
rather
than
a
dichotomy
(Wolfe,
p.
196),
or
a
four-part
model:
’the
public,
the
private,
the
market
economy,
and
the
soctal’
(Hansen,
p.
293).
Because
the
’social’,
or
civil
society,
is
such
a
curious
hybrid
of
public
and
private
elements,
it
is
no
less
ambiguous
than
the
public/private
dichotomy
itself,
as
is
apparent
in
the
essay
by
Garcelon
which
considers
how
civil
society
and
the
public
sphere
might
be
insti-
tutionalized
in
contemporary
postcommunist
societies.
While
it
is
not
possible
to
do
justice
to
12
discrete,
albeit
thematically
related
essays
in
a
brief
review,
I
hope
to
have
whetted
the
reader’s
appetite
for
this
immensely
valu-
able
and
rewarding
collection
which
has
sought
to
wrestle
with
a
’grand
dichotomy’
of
liberal
thought.
MARGARET
THORNTON
School
of
Law
and
Legal
Studies,
La
Trobe
University,
Australia
DIDI
HERMAN,
The
Antigay
Agenda:
Orthodox
Vision
and
the Christian
Right.
Chicago:
University
of
Chicago
Press,
1997, 242
pp.,
$24.95
(hbk),
$15.00
(pbk).
In
the
30
years
since
Barry
Goldwater’s
1964
nomination
as
Republican
Presidential
candidate
and
the
1994
gaining
of
a
Republican
majority
in
both
Houses
of
Congress,
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