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SUNDAY_LOVE

                                              January  1-18, 2005

Sontag does not discuss
the problems of a love          SUNDAY_CAMP
of the bad:

It can become

  a psychological escape,
  a false center,
  a way of avoiding engagement.                   The hipster stands back,
                                                  and is not touched
                                                  and does not touch


This is the closest she gets:

"2. To emphasize style is to
slight content, or to introduce an
attitude which is neutral with
respect to content. It goes                   Camp as an appreciation
without saying that the Camp                  of style over content?
sensibility is disengaged,                    This is what I've been
depoliticized -- or at least                  calling "decadence".
apolitical."
                                                  Fair enough: camp is
                                                  one form of decadence.

Part of the appeal of camp is
that absence of the moralistic...
morality is hard to deal with,
too easy to be wrong, or worse,
inane and boring.

   Is any attempt at earnestness,
   at sincerity, at, for lack of
   a better term, humanity
   condemened to the shadow                  "What, then, is *not* to be
   realm of camp?  Good for                  taken seriously?  Any
   laughs, but nothing to live by...         representation of human
                                             virtue."  -- Ayn Rand

                                                      AVENGING_RAND



To learn that a favorite piece
of art is regarded by someone        THE_FALCON
else as mere camp is a jarring
experience.

It is literally an insult:           
they regard you as a naive       (though whether you choose
innocent, someone who can        to be insulted is a       
not be taken seriously.          different matter)         

You are pushed outside of the          
club: you are no longer a              
hipster/insider winking at           
camp, but one of those               
inferior -- but loveable --          
human beings that produces the
camp the hipster dotes on.    
                                    
   Perhaps you
   yourself are a
   camp object?

To claim to be a devotee of kitsch
can be very much a defensive act, 
a way of ensuring that *you* will 
not be pushed across the border.


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