"As I strictly monitor attendance and enforce order, I sometimes ruefully feel like a teaching nun from the over-regulated era of my upstate New York youth! I have a powerful sense of the descent of modern education from the medieval monasteries and cathedrals.... My faith in that nurturing continuity is certainly diametrically opposed to the cynically subversive approach of today's postmodernist theorists, who see history as a false or repressive narrative operating on disconnected fragments."
Says Camille Paglia, and no, it's not cynical to call other people cynical. Is it?
Paglia says "American academics... are pitifully trapped in a sterile career system that has become paralyzed by political correctness." She's also bothered by the way college campuses these days are "hysterically portrayed as rape extravaganzas where women are helpless fluffs with no control over their own choices and behavior." Colleges ought to stop "demeaning and infantilizing" students, and "cease their tyrannical surveillance of students' social lives." She'd like to stop protecting and patronizing women and get back to the old "pro-sex," "street-smart" version of feminism.
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My version of feminism is women understanding what interests them, as opposed to what various interest groups say should interest them.
It's not the same things that interest men.
Derrida's "Choreographies" begins with a nice presentation.
Paglia just wants more people like her.
The Left continually over hypes. From imminent disappearance of islands due to global warming to the rape/sexual assault of one in five women on campus. I like those sharp, strong women of the late 60's and 1970's. They were a perfect blend of women who knew where they were going and what they were about. Classroom teach some of that.
Can't get enough of Camille Paglia's commentary. She's very good at making her point, whether you agree with it or not. Kind of like AA, only different. I marvel at how Paglia constructs her sentences to project her point, whereas I marvel at how AA deconstructs sentences to make hers.
The second paragraph you quote demonstrates her coherent line of thought on today's campus culture.
Telling a female student not to get falling down drunk is "blaming the victim", whereas telling someone to lock their doors to prevent home robberies is an ounce of prevention.
Can someone explain "street smart" vs. smart vs. common sense?
Her interviewer is a former journalist, turned Jesuit.
I believe a man's expressed sexual preference is the resolution of a late adolescent's nature, and a nurture phenomenon that comes from family and society. Guys have these natural feelings and they need to learn how they can be part of a rich life, and that they are not some disease-like maladaption that needs to be suppressed.
Campus feminism is all about suppression. Girls come to college to learn that males are their natural class enemy and that every boy is a potential sex criminal. They inject a loud negative voice into a boy's own internal debate about his sexual identity that often influences the outcome.
Campus feminism creates gay men. And the new phenomenon of feminist rape culture on campus puts the process into overdrive. What social benefit does a school like the University of Wisconsin or any university offer from embracing feminist rape culture? What's so great about turning boys into damaged men? I'm just not sophisticated enough to see it, please help me out.
This article was a great find, thanks. She is not your typical feminist in lock-step with today's politics.
The title "The Catholic Pagan" reminds me of a Surfer Blood song of a couple years ago, "Catholic Pagans"-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kQ1h8PY2JI
Why Catholic Pagans and not just plain Catholic Catholics ?
I guess because Pagans have an easier time rationalizing their behavior.
She is a very smart woman, but she spends a lot of her brain justifying her lack of self discipline.
Thanks for the post.
I always enjoy her commentaries. Clear and refreshing.
Her response to the last question is the most interesting, IMO. She is honest enough to acknowledge that she will never come to terms with Catholic theology because it conflicts with her devotion to the sexual revolution. Noted.
For that I respect her a lot more than those who agitate for the Church to change, but I pity her for not being able to see that the sexual revolution itself might be wrong.
Paglia is the epitome of the aphorism: "even a stopped clock is right twice a day."
Not pro-sex. There is no need to normalize or promote sexual relationships. Sex is a pleasure and responsibility. It has been a costly (i.e. bloody and debasing) mistake to indulge in libertine fantasies. Colleges ought to be pro-education and less activist.
Paglia nails it. Third wavers demand agency without responsibility.
Love Paglia.
Am I wrong to guess that you still highly value your classroom teaching experiences, Prof. Althouse? That's what I would enjoy most if I had your job, far more than writing for law reviews and other academics.
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