"All the world old is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer"
About this Quote
A sly wink masquerading as a proverb, Owen's line flatters you into agreement, then yanks the rug out with that final twist: "and even thou art a little queer". It is a miniature lesson in how communities get built and policed. Start with the cozy binary of us-versus-them ("thee and me"), and you can feel the seduction: we are the sane ones; the rest of the world is strange. Then Owen punctures the comfort with a needle of self-implication. The punchline isn't just humorous; it's moral hygiene. If everyone else looks "queer", the problem may be your lens.
The intent is double-edged. On one side, it's an anti-pretension jab at the human habit of treating our norms as nature. On the other, it's a warning about the ease with which "difference" becomes a verdict. Owen lived in an age intoxicated with rational systems and social reform, and as a utopian-minded industrial reformer he had reason to distrust inherited common sense: what passes for normal often props up cruelty, poverty, and hierarchy. Calling the world "queer" exposes how arbitrary the world's arrangements are; admitting you are "a little queer" smuggles in empathy.
The subtext is that righteousness is a social pose. If you can laugh at your own oddness, you're less likely to turn other people's oddness into a reason to exclude them. It's an unusually compact piece of reform rhetoric: disarm the audience with intimacy, then insist they share the stigma they were about to assign.
The intent is double-edged. On one side, it's an anti-pretension jab at the human habit of treating our norms as nature. On the other, it's a warning about the ease with which "difference" becomes a verdict. Owen lived in an age intoxicated with rational systems and social reform, and as a utopian-minded industrial reformer he had reason to distrust inherited common sense: what passes for normal often props up cruelty, poverty, and hierarchy. Calling the world "queer" exposes how arbitrary the world's arrangements are; admitting you are "a little queer" smuggles in empathy.
The subtext is that righteousness is a social pose. If you can laugh at your own oddness, you're less likely to turn other people's oddness into a reason to exclude them. It's an unusually compact piece of reform rhetoric: disarm the audience with intimacy, then insist they share the stigma they were about to assign.
Quote Details
| Topic | Romantic |
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