sexual personae

Wow, that's really dense writing. Does she get paid by the word?

So Palin is good because she's gutsy and feisty, and we shouldn't judge her on her political stands because they are completely distorted by the media (I'd love to know where Paglia gets her information, since she can so easily bypass the normal systems of information).

And what's with that paragraph about Philadelphia? That really looks like she's fillin' out the word count.

Now I gotta change my fucking display name AGAIN?

Walmart and MacDonalds and other places were *REAL* Americans hang out, so she doesn't lose her connection with the populace. That's where she gets her information from, punk.

I always feel like theirs no real rigour in her discourse. Her essays and pieces are littered with self consciously abrasive opinions, hastily formed assumptions and barking orders. I suppose she's earned the right to harangue liberals for their "infexible moral absolutes" by being so ridiculously contrarian with her opinions.

But yeah, what Masonic Boom said about Walmart and McDonalds, I think she kind of shows that in the passage where she lives in the apartment above the Farmhouse. She casts this patronisingly anthropological eye on the farm wife, and then gets to identify with her in her "Men!" dismissal, she gets to have her cake and eat it really.

I always feel like theirs no real rigour in her discourse. Her essays and pieces are littered with self consciously abrasive opinions, hastily formed assumptions and barking orders. I suppose she's earned the right to harangue liberals for their "infexible moral absolutes" by being so ridiculously contrarian with her opinions.

PATRON SAINT OF ILX

: )

Camille paglia is like the patron saint of challops

HOOS, thank you for your inane clarification. Again, if you can, please try to expound on what you mean by "ridiculous" and "boring" opinion. You simply sound uninformed and scared of debating. Again, I would advise people to actually read what they are trying to criticize, otherwise they only expose their intellectual limitations. I also wish you good luck living your life with your current level of argumentative skills and cultural references. Remember: you cannnot fake or whine your way through life. If you want to discuss Paglia's theory of Western literature and the role of classical tradition in shaping the forces of popular culture or her thoughts on contemporary poetry, please feel free to contact me.

"I always feel like theirs no real rigour in her discourse"
I know right, please stop, I feel kind of bad every time I laugh at your less than insightful opinions on Paglia.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v165/noodle_vague/afewgoodmenjacktruth.jpg

Okay, that "dismissal" was pretty much entirely ripped off the Burchill/Paglia thing, so I wish you luck in forming your own arguments in future. Or indeed forming a fucking argument at all. From what I can see, all you've said in this thread is: "Camille Paglia is brilliant, has incredible verve, knows what she's talking about and has dismissed several fakers and mediocrities in Academia. Sexual Personae is her best book." Wow, really expanding your ideas their for us and displaying your "current level of argumentative skills and cultural references".

Seems like you're the one with the ironic nick to me.

Very good I know right, that's a start, you're reading, although you're still not understanding. Remember Burckhardt's famous dictum: bisogna saper leggere. In the correspondence, Paglia completely destroyed that obscure woman's pretentiousness. As to my opinions, why don't you start from there? Say, you could try to criticize Paglia's theory of culture and we'll go from there.

vision is a dapper optometrist by trade.

wow, this thread, the way it starts!

Just because Paglia "destroyed that obscure woman's pretentiousness" doesn't mean you can paraphrase her and claim zing victory. It makes you sound like a tape recorder. Also, the point I thought I made was, we don't know what your opinions are except that everyone else's are boring, apparently. But yeah, thanks for moving on in tone from mindlessly declarative to gratingly patronising. What you're saying remains the same, though, you keep asking everybody else for a fucking bone instead of instigating debate yourself. You keep telling everybody else that they don't know jack shit but you're keeping fairly tight-lipped about what you know, for the almost certain reason that playing your hand will reveal your own arguments as drab and clumsy.

xxpost, hah;, i wanted to say sth similar but less eloquently. alas i lack the elaborate dictionary and how to use it. :-)

vision I am in need of contact lenses perhaps you can help please email me maxr✧✧✧@gm✧✧✧.c✧✧

Vision, when you give people an eye test, do you tell them they're reading but not understanding?

I always feel like theirs no real rigour in her discourse.

please tell me you're not just highlighting the grammar there!

HOOS, thank you for your inane clarification. Again, if you can, please try to expound on what you mean by "ridiculous" and "boring" opinion. You simply sound uninformed and scared of debating. Again, I would advise people to actually read what they are trying to criticize, otherwise they only expose their intellectual limitations. I also wish you good luck living your life with your current level of argumentative skills and cultural references. Remember: you cannnot fake or whine your way through life. If you want to discuss Paglia's theory of Western literature and the role of classical tradition in shaping the forces of popular culture or her thoughts on contemporary poetry, please feel free to contact me.

"I always feel like theirs no real rigour in her discourse"
I know right, please stop, I feel kind of bad every time I laugh at your less than insightful opinions on Paglia.

― Vision, Sunday, September 14, 2008 12:26 PM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I know right, I won't repeat the arguments in the fax exchange because I believe they are self-explanatory even for the most entry-level kind of reader. It's only one page that can be read in three minutes by everyone here.

Now, some arguments:
-Paglia has a theory of culture (you know, Apollonyan androgynes, Dionysian undercurrents, forces of nature and sexuality shaping culture, gender roles in history, crime, popular culture etc etc); what are you thoughts on it?
-Paglia is very incisive in her statements (hence "verve"); several of her most famous phrases have entered the mainstream debate; what do you have to say about them?
-she also has a very original theory of poetry, going from Sappho to Joni Mitchell and again based on the expression of sexual impulse, among other things; do you think she got it wrong? How?

Just out of curiosity, and in good faith, I invite everyone who decided to join this specific thread to state which Paglia books they have read, whether they follow her columns in Salon etc. I'll start: I have read all of her books (including the one on Hitchcock's "The Birds", which is good way to start for those who don't know her). I read SP when it was first released in 1990, and I had the opportunity to follow several public debates in which she engaged. I think her essay "No Law in the Arena" (in Vamps and Tramps) is good starting point on her views on sexuality, culture and society. If anyone wants to comment on any of those particular texts, please do so.

It's also noticeable that, despite her many foes and her profoundly ambitious incursions into scholarly minutae (Spenser, Frazer, Jane Harrison et al), Paglia has never been found to make a major mistake in her assessments, to misquote or to overlook (unlike, say, George Steiner, Derrida and even Bloom).

There you have it. These are just fragments and overall reminders, I'm not really going to make you homework for you. Remember, you were among those who first tried to criticize her, so the obligation to say why was yours in the first place; shoddily linking to a series of exchanged messages or cutting and pasting a Salon column on Palin and Obama is not really proving your point, it's just trying to evade critical reading and critical thinking.
Your dismissal seems to have the boldness of ignorance as a fuel; had you read her in the first place, had you at least gone to Mr.Wikipedia for the big picture, I would not have been so harsh on you, but get this: don't take cliquish consensus for the truth. Don't think your internet pals on a message board can protect you or help you hide your limitations. Form your own opinion. Read.

sex viagra, you know, that's interesting because vision in the sense of image selection and projection is very important for Paglia. I can't help you with the lenses, but I can give you one advice: choose a pair that enables you to see clearer, as opposed to distorting the world around you.

and then when the calf of incisive truth comes careening at full speed toward you, you won't instinctively step back but will trudge to the upper pasture, corner the calf, and carry that massive animal back to the barn in your arms, exclaiming in amused disgust, "internet pals!"

Now, some arguments:
-Paglia has a theory of culture (you know, Apollonyan androgynes, Dionysian undercurrents, forces of nature and sexuality shaping culture, gender roles in history, crime, popular culture etc etc); what are you thoughts on it?

hahahahahaha

Thanks g.grinder, very clever and insightful. Next?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v165/noodle_vague/daftsod.jpg

I may, in my second official act as mod, lock this thread.

I for one already said all I wanted to say. Also a learning experience for me: I didn't know what "challop" meant.

I have never owned or read any of her books, and I don't suppose I ever will.

From media appearances and representation, she has always seemed to me like a rather strained, aggressive, ugly middle-aged woman who mostly talked a lot of nonsense.

On second thought, I do want to say one final thing RE pinefox above: why is it that people feel inclined to judge a woman's looks even though we're talking about her ideas?

Okay, this is a really interesting piece of writing that makes incisive and thoughtful points, and is without the bullying tone I find so off-putting. She also makes several points about the possibilities of a fruitful relationship with the church and the arts in america that I really agree with, so maybe it's easier not to feel, affronted(for want of a better word) by it.

I recently read this interview with Zizek, a writer whose work I enjoy despite frequent fundamental disagreement with. The bit that I want to talk about though is this: "What I despise in America is the studio actors logic, as if there is something good in self expression: do not be oppressed, open yourself, even if you shout and kick the others, everything in order to express and liberate yourself. This stupid idea, that behind the mask there is some truth. In Japan, and I hope that this is not only a myth, even if something is merely an appearance, politeness is not simply insincere. There is a difference between saying 'Hello, how are you?' and the New York taxi drivers who swear at you. Surfaces do matter. If you disturb the surfaces you may lose a lot more than you account. You shouldn't play with rituals. Masks are never simply mere masks.". Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not bringing this up just to childishly criticise Paglia for sheer abrasiveness, so don't immediately act like I am. The connection I just want to point out, a connection I feel about her work, is that she's too hung up on this notion. The mask and the fierce pagan poetry that it constricts. This is how I felt with Sexual Personae, that for her every code and symbol is a constricting element that ties up some surging primeval river or lust or ferocity. I can't really relate to this. I feel like, she misses the point quite a lot because of this gung-ho fixation.

In this case what I mean is, what seems to me anyway, a fundamental misreading of the aesthetic codes of Puritanical aesthetics. She confuses the rejection of ornament and imagery in early protestant religions with a rejection of art. I don't necessarily agree that their "attitude toward art (which) was conditioned by utilitarian principles of frugality and propriety" is necessarily not an aesthetic one. The puritan aesthetic, I believe, is mirrored more illustratively in the work of Joseph Beuys, obviously separated by time and continent. His notions about the spiritual properties of basic materials (through healing or insulating properties, etc.) seem analogous the practical frugal attitude of the early settlers in America. For them aesthetics became sublimated as opposed to eliminated. Their lack of adornment is obviously just as much of an aesthetic choice. Practicality and austerity are a type of beauty, much as nature is only read for its "signs of God's providence". Indeed, it's surprising to me that Paglia chooses not to see the savage beauty of these things, but for her beauty is always tied with decadence.

In the end she decides that art must embrace religion in order to revive itself. For me, though, the relationship between art and religion (and even beauty) was best summed up by Dave Hickey when he said (I paraphrase out of necessity, I don't have the work to hand) "Oil painting was invented as a way to show the inner light of Christ". The reason this is so beautiful is because it embraces how humble materials, gesso on wood panel, overlaid with linseed oil and pigment, could become an equivalent for the formlessness of belief. The frugality of the Puritans was a way of embracing the spirituality and beauty of practicality.

and actually, roxy made the point I've been trying to fucking make with almost every post, which is, YOU are not making arguments, you say you are but you're not. That wasn't an argument. All you said was: "there's a theory, what do you think?". The only point you've made about Paglia is telling us you know loads about her, but you haven't actually shown us you do. At all. Not once.

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l288/allskulls/Vision.jpg

vision pls text me

immediately v. urgent pls txt

Also paglia on gay men and prostitution (both things she know all about) are very o_O

Weirdly though, she kindof nails "Bears"

OK I know right, you've made a true effort, so here am I back again to this Paglia thing. There's one academic tradition which goes back to the Middle Ages called the "status quaestionis" which basically means that you're supposed to be familiar with the extent of accumulated knowledge and the current level of debate in any discussion which you decide to join. Nobody is supposed to tell you why they agree with a certain theory inasmuch as you, as a mature person, are the one challenging the ideas or the author under discussion. When you ask me to say why I think Paglia's ideas are sound, you're actually asking me to give you remedial classes.

I will give you three brief (and thoroughly unoriginal, as they've been part of these discussions for years) comments:

-Paglia has gone back to the emotional and sexual urges that induce or influence several of our efforts, including artistic ones. In doing so, she helped rescue culture from a stric, stolid structuralist approach;
-Paglia has built the bridge between ancient tradition, Romanticism and popular culture, giving us wonderful critical tools to perceive a linearity in Western culture; and
-after decades of deconstructionist relativism and obfuscation, Paglia, along with the Sokal/Bricmont book, helped revive the need for true knowledge, that is, to become a scholarly reader, not just a skimmer or a faker.

Your comment above on her text for Arion, where she frequently writes on education, feminism and so on, is good because it is based on you own perception. It should be pointed that puritan aesthetics derives from puritan ethics; she didn't invent it, she just pointed the contrast. There's no denying that the Reform tradition within Christianity produced works of great beauty, but you can just as easily point at a certain drabness in ornamentation which cannot be easily denied either.

About the Zizek quote, he's not really talking about Paglia's personae at all (the concept goes back to Greek drama and has a little Jung and Mario Praz thrown in). Think about it for a moment: you know he's controversial to say the very least, and he also often expresses himself quite unabashedly. When he says "no, don't shed the mask, don't look behind it, don't emphasize self-expression", he's actually trying to prevent you, the gullible reader, from exercising the same right that he uses and abuses, both as a writer and as a public figure. Why shoud he be entitled to define what and how anything may be expressed? Comparing both worldviews, which one empowers you as a person?

I agree with your last paragraph with the Hickey quote, don't see how it contradicts Paglia really except if we are strictly comparative; Paglia has often extolled the beautiful clarity bestowed by a monastic, celibate, rigorous approach to the arts and culture. Her only qualification was that this was an exception rather than the rule.

p.s: yeah, that too about homosexuality, it can be uncomfortable reading about her experiences, the vynil-covered NY bars in the 70s, the onset of AIDS etc. Paglia is very blunt about the aggressiveness of male libido and the counter aggression of nature, I find it educational but it can be very very blunt.She has a famous phrase about advising people not to read Sade before lunch, in a sense the same could be said about some of the sorry details she mentions and her directness whenever she discusses the high price payed by promiscuity. Again, she did't invent anything, she lived through that and she does not idealize it.

sex viagra, what do you mean?

Nobody is supposed to tell you why they agree with a certain theory inasmuch as you, as a mature person, are the one challenging the ideas or the author under discussion.

You brought no ideas up for discussion.

g.grinder, obviously not, because wer're not discussing Vision's theory of culture, we are discussing Camille Paglia's theory of culture. Her ideas are easily accessible to anyone who can read english. So if you try to challenge her ideas, it's always advisable to know at least the basics of what she thinks. Dismissal is often just ignorance.

Yes, you are certainly not being dismissive here.

That's right, because dismissing an unqualified negation improves the signal to noise ratio of the discussion as a whole. In other words: If you say "Paglia is dumb", that is ignorant and dismissive, but if you say "comments such as 'hahaha' or 'Paglia is dumb' are dumb", that is just cleaning the field.

Vision is Pipecock and I claim my £20.

kevin john bozolko i thought

Pretty sure it's the woman in the Youtube vid.

and then when the calf of incisive truth comes careening at full speed toward you...

estela be praised!

Vision, while you no doubt have excellent reasons for holding your opinions on Paglia, your style has all the grace of a person with a neck brace and a dozen fused vertebrae. This impairs the effectiveness of your message. Try bending a bit. It will improve your ability to get where you want to go.

Your may now reram your blunderbuss and aim my way for daring to elevate style over substance, where I am in fact just putting a flea in your ear. They say a word to the wise is sufficient. We'll see where you fall in that scale.

Aimless, sorry I can't do that because I refuse to dumb myself down to your criteria. I'll give a concise, for Dummies recap: whenever you want to comment about anything at all, know what you're talking about. A passing acquaintance with the subject. The Wikipedia entry. Anything except for unaware ignorance is a start.

Grace is dumb? OK. Be that way.

from that interview i think "crazy old dyke" is dead on. a crazy old dyke in the right place at the right time. i'm not familiar with who it was that bought her horseshit though. confused women and men both? is her stuff on a pua / ayn rand / misogynistic nerd continuum? how did people take it seriously (did they)? xp

yeah those first two posts are basically alpha and omega

xp "dyke" is unfortunate i guess. more like hyper-closeted / repressed.

http://www.salon.com/2012/10/10/camille_paglias_glittering_images/

I haven't read it yet but I'm looking forward to it! (The interview, not the book. I'm done reading Paglia books forever, I think.)

HI I AM THE AMAZING RANDY