Comments on: Lust a virtue

By: Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas Gruen — Tue, 13 Jan 2004 12:00:11 +0000

Lust is its own reward.

By: Fontana Labs

Fontana Labs — Mon, 12 Jan 2004 21:40:40 +0000

Yes, Simon also argues on a priori grounds for a third martini. If I were a famous academic, I would try to avoid offering theoretical justifications for my reputed vices, on pain of looking, you know, silly—but maybe that’s just me.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Mon, 12 Jan 2004 09:37:25 +0000

If lust has been mainly a source of pleasure rather than its opposite for Simon Blackburn, I have to say I envy him his life. dd

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 12 Jan 2004 06:35:20 +0000

While I tremendously enjoy CT, perhaps its writers could separate lust and Cambridge faculty, writing about the latter in the context of academics and the former in the context of the Swimsuit Issue? Otherwise, the images that come to mind are predictably unpleasant.

By: Stewart Kelly

Stewart Kelly — Mon, 12 Jan 2004 04:34:26 +0000

I thought his analogy with thirst was a bit weak. Thirst doesn’t drive the alcoholic to drink, and lust does not sustain life in the manner drinking, say, water does.

By: Jeremy Pierce

Jeremy Pierce — Mon, 12 Jan 2004 04:24:33 +0000

It seems to me that Blackburn is trying to win an argument by definition. What he’s calling lust is what most people would call sexual desire, something most evangelical Christians believe is good and was created by God for our enjoyment. Whether you are lusting is whether you are uncontrolled in that desire. He’s not saying anything that would even be objectionable to most conservatives on sexual issues. It just sounds radical because he’s redefined ‘lust’.

By: John Isbell

John Isbell — Mon, 12 Jan 2004 03:23:50 +0000

A group of Oxford dons were bathing in the Cherwell, when a party of ladies happened past. All the dons instantly covered their groins, except for one who covered his face, saying, “I don’t know about you, but in these parts it’s my face I’m known by.”

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Mon, 12 Jan 2004 00:45:26 +0000

Why how very kind of you, to satisfy my Patagonian curiosity. I’m very glad it’s all anonymous, I have no desire whatever to know anything further. What was that people were mumbling about blog scholarship?

By: Nasi Lemak

Nasi Lemak — Mon, 12 Jan 2004 00:18:00 +0000

I assume this is the story to which a reference may be being made. (The actual original story being in the Mail on Sunday last July, and therefore not online outside of lexis-nexis etc.)

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Mon, 12 Jan 2004 00:01:10 +0000

I’m awfully tempted to google “Cambridge sex scandal” but that’s silly.

By: jason

jason — Sun, 11 Jan 2004 23:52:58 +0000

i think i’d be in support of this by default of affliction. is that so wrong? he he.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Sun, 11 Jan 2004 23:50:55 +0000

Well of course I knew you did – I just wasn’t sure what the jest was about. If it’s insider gossip [sigh] I’m at a disadvantage. I live under a bramble bush 752 miles from the nearest settlement in Tierra del Fuego. It’s quite pleasant, but I lose touch with the gossip.

By: Nasi Lemak

Nasi Lemak — Sun, 11 Jan 2004 23:27:21 +0000

Perhaps it was the opportunity for a dig at last summer’s Cambridge scandal?

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Sun, 11 Jan 2004 23:05:41 +0000

Surely I do.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Sun, 11 Jan 2004 21:49:29 +0000

Surely you jest. Theoretical justifications have been pouring or do I mean thundering off the presses for centuries. Well more or less theoretical anyway. Look at Montaigne, On Some Verses of Virgil. All right, not very theoretical, but then he didn’t have the maths for it.