In your estimation, is there a difference between being immoral and of loose morals?
It seems to me that immoral is much harsher judgment than being of loose morals…
The phrase is:
Given the moral valence of color, the darkness also connotes moral deficiency, which in these cases is reinforced by the women’s status as peasants and their possible Moorish heritage. The popular love songs BW analyses in these two essays evidence both an erotic fantasizing about the lusty, loose-moraled morena and an anxiety of whitening: through potions, washes, and salves, a hiding from the sun, or the hope that the blindness of love will make the women appear blond and fair-skinned to their lover.
But, is loose-moraled the best option? I do like the alliteration…
Should I write, instead, the purportedly loose-moraled morena?
that asked, I guess I need to find a new phrasing for the last bit of that second sentence.
by Balthasar Gracián—Aug 7, 01:12 PM
Immoral speaks of an absence of morality, an essential quality of being; loose morals is a propensity toward acting immoral, but without actually being so on a regular basis. Another way of saying that is to acknowledge that there can be such a thing as an immoral act, but only a person can be of loose morals.
I think, though, you should change it to “loose moreled morena.”
by greg—Aug 7, 01:58 PM
I do think loose-moraled is the best option. An immoral person is someone who has full moral capabilities, and deliberately violates or ignores them. A loose-moraled person is someone who never really got the full grasp on right and wrong. That meaning fits the idea of the racist, partial dehumanization you are describing perfectly, I think.
by JH—Aug 7, 02:02 PM
mmmmh…. I’d love some loose morels done right in olive oil and butter and garlic and tossed over curly-cue pasta with generous sprinkling of parmessan….
though, really the only way i’ve ever prepared morels is in a vodka-cream sauce that is then poured over roasted asparagus…. delish!
yeah, i think i’ll stick with the loose-moraled.
by Balthasar Gracián—Aug 7, 02:08 PM
mmm…the last time we had morels was in a ragout, with portabellas, butter, olive oil, garlic, and dry white wine. yum.
but then we had a connection who actually gave them to us, as i recall. we’re too poor to afford such luxuries…(cue violins)…
by kl—Aug 7, 02:40 PM
in the case of mushrooms, they are normally referred to as a peddler, a pusher, a dealer, a slinger, a dope boy…
by Jeremy—Aug 7, 02:47 PM
A pusher wouldn’t hand out mushrooms. Psychedelics aren’t addictive enough.
by greg—Aug 7, 02:49 PM
I knew a guy who sometimes came through with the mushrooms. We usually called him “Brian,” or occasionally “dipshit.”
by JH—Aug 7, 03:29 PM
re:7 ok Steppenwolf… go back to your shrooms, your grass, and your pills
re:8 in those moments before he came through with whatever did you sing “if I only had a Brian”?
by Jeremy—Aug 7, 03:35 PM
Where I grew up, those things grew in any given cow pasture on a warm, wet, spring/summer night. We would just go harvest them ourselves long before we ever got desperate enough to sing songs about Brian.
by JH—Aug 7, 03:45 PM
Where I grew up, it was treacherous to walk around any given cow pasture on a warm, wet, spring/summer night.
by greg—Aug 7, 03:49 PM
Treacherous because of the police, or the mushy dung?
by JH—Aug 7, 03:51 PM
Because of the snipe.
by greg—Aug 7, 03:55 PM
Ahh yes, that. We never really had anything that bad. The worst I ever heard about was the occasional farmer firing a warning blast straight up into the air.
But of course, everyone knows that Alabama is a much more civilized placed than Arkansas.
by JH—Aug 7, 04:26 PM
Except for Jeff Sessions. He’s as prelapsarian as they come.
by greg—Aug 7, 06:54 PM