Kieran Healy

Chat-up lines

Obviously suffering from some sort of nervous exhaustion, Josh Chaftez is having a competition to find the best Political Theory Pick-up Lines. Here’s my entry:

It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. Until now.

Just call me an old-fashioned romantic. Kevin Drum, on the other hand, is taking a rather more crude approach.

Update: See Dan Drezner, Matt Yglesias and the Followups to this post for more unlikely-to-succeed approaches.

Ah. Pitying the plumage and forgetting the dying bird again, I see…

:-)

Now there’s a chat-up line.

Damn it. There goes my Burke line.

:-) Sadly enough, I actually have mentioned utilitarianism in a, er, romantic situation, though it was more to do with keeping some clothes on. I can’t remember if my companion made a successful rejoinder about my failing to take the distinction between persons seriously, or if he was mostly focusing on eliminating the distinction between persons.

And here I thought your entry, given your post from the other week, would be more along the lines of Max Weber’s favorite line:

‘You’re my ideal type.’

When I was a child, my parents took me to the carnival, and the attraction which most intrigued me was called the Boneless Wonder. But my parents judged it a sight too horrible for my young eyes. I have waited thirty-seven years to see the Boneless Wonder sitting opposite me on the government bench (more or less).
I think this is a sure winner.

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