Comments on: Jean-Jacques, antithesis of the metrosexual

By: Thomas Wilde

Thomas Wilde — Sat, 18 Oct 2003 15:15:51 +0000

“metrosexual”? They really like trains?

By: Invisible Adjunct

Invisible Adjunct — Sat, 18 Oct 2003 03:49:15 +0000

Re: the clubbable, sociable Hume. If we’re going to gossip about le bon David, I’d like to nominate that incident with the maidservant who gave birth to an illegitimate child who was possibly (probably) the child of Hume as a likely source of scandal. Not that I would spread rumours about Hume…I’m just saying, it doesn’t sound so very metrosexual.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Fri, 17 Oct 2003 14:10:55 +0000

Just so – though of course one would also (I should think) have to take a look at the somewhat debased notion of progress or ‘better’ that entails. All surface; all seeming rather than being; all appearance rather than reality; all consumerism and product placement. Which just goes to show that there’s a lot to be said for appearance – how sad.

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 16 Oct 2003 21:42:31 +0000

Well, whenever I watch Queer Eye, and hear the (by now, rather tiresome) opening theme song—something like ‘All things keep getting better’—I’m reminded of Turgot and Condorcet. I do think one could do an interesting paper on ‘Queer Eye’ as reflecting a robustly and somewhat poignantly unabashed and undimmed expression of the Enlightenment’s faith (or at least some philosophes’ faith) in progress. (Indeed, I was thinking of doing a post on that, but I seem to have been beaten to it!)

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Thu, 16 Oct 2003 14:32:18 +0000

Interesting; I hadn’t thought of it that way before. So we can see the Fab Five as a sort of collective le bon David, in his pretty waistcoat, so conversable and clubbable and well-liked in the salons, just what he ought to be.