skygiants

I would ding the book more for the polemical title if Bowen didn't come out in the first chapter and be like "so uh about that polemical title . . . yeah, sorry about that."

Yeah, I think the framework that it sets up is maybe the most important part. You're absolutely right that without that background none of the arguments made much sense to me; now at least, while I find many of them inherently bemusing still, I can turn my head sideways and squint and see where they're coming from. The concept of a totally neutral public space being the absolute goal is - in some ways a very alien ideal, more alien than I think I expect from a culture that is superficially so close/exports as much surface imagery as France does (if that makes sense). But now I feel I can sort of understand it as an ideal. While fully agreeing that . . . neutral as it is imagined in France, with all the privilege and assumptions attached, is not neutral for many people. (And true universal neutral may be an impossible achievement.)