What's Left of Theory? New Work on the Politics of Literary Theory - Book Review

Style, Summer, 2001 by Mark Bauerlein

In "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Anorexia" (an echo of Weber), Jeff Nunokawa eschews wide-ranging speculation and argues a basic literary thesis: that the de-essentialism in Dorian Gray is aimed not only at heterosexual hegemony, but also at the Protestant Ethic. But to get to that thesis, one must wade through sentences such as this:

No less well known by now is the alliance between these things proposed or assumed by a range of recent criticism, the alliance located in and then beyond Oscar Wilde between perversity and postmodernism, between sexual dissidence and the denial of depth, an alliance whose most fundamental link is the by now common sense that the concept of essence is the prop of a heterosexual normativity whose propagations rely on the claim that nature is on its side. (242)

Fourteen prepositions, four "is"-es, two "by now"-s, two "whose"-es, and a demonstrative "these things" that remains a mystery. The words galumph across the page, cluttering the sense with needless refinements such as "proposed or assumed by" and "located in and then beyond." This is more than stylistic ineptitude; it neglects readers who do not share the queer-theory outlook. The cliquishness lies in the telling assertion that essence-as-heterosexual-coercion is now "common sense." To Nunokawa, essence is beyond debate, the normativity interpretation a given. All those evolutionary biologists, geneticists, psychoanalysts, and conservatives across the nation who believe in essences stand outside the pale of common knowledge.

Though free of the stylistic horrors of Nunokawa's essay, Warner's "Zones of Privacy" opens with a similar arrogation: "Along Christopher Street, you can tell immediately that something is wrong" (75). What is wrong is that the porn shops and peep shows have gone mainstream, succumbing to the antisex zoning laws devised by Mayor Giuliani. Today, Warner laments, "a pall hangs over the public life of queers" (78), and gay rights organizations have muted their responses to the campaign. Warner pinpoints the motivation for the rezoning as "the desire to make sex less noticeable in the course of everyday urban life, and more difficult to find for those who want sexual materials" (83). But would Giuliani accept this characterization? Warner implies that the opposition to porn districts stems not from homophobia, but from the ambitions of real estate developers, a judgment that wisely broadens the issue beyond sexual politics. But he never allows opponents to state their position in their terms. He notes the claim that "secondary effects"--falling property values, rising crime, etc.--force the closure of porn stores, and then he blames the city for failing to show that the correlation is causal (83). But Warner provides no statistics on crime and property values, reveals no names of developers. He indicts Guiliani by quoting stories from the Times. He summarizes Community Board and Planning Commission meetings briefly in note ii. In asking "Whether the 'mainstream' conforms to its self-understanding," he cites his and Lauren Berlant's article "Sex in Public" and Joshua Gamson's Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity (see note 5). This is tendentious reasoning addressed only to the choir.