
The Provocations of Camille Paglia - amanuensis
https://www.city-journal.org/camille-paglia
======
simonh
Paglia is a force of nature. It's so exhilarating to come across such a
passionate yet clear-sighted academic, battle scarred by exposure of her past
misconceptions to the brutality of testing in the real world, and with such a
stronger voice for it.

I know he's just as much of a divisive figure, but there's a great video of a
conversation between Paglia and Jordan Peterson on Youtube.

~~~
euroPoor
She’s got the same level of understanding of Foucault and Derrida as Jordan
Peterson, ie. ill-informed and superficial. What a shame to call these people
clear-sighted when they clearly not only misread Continental philosophers but
it becomes apparent that they didn’t even read some of the works they’re
criticizing.

~~~
simonh
Peterson is unbelievably well read, he was on a project for the United Nations
and read 300 books on climate science. I'd be very hesitant before accusing
him of criticising a book or author without having done his research. I've
seen him catch out interviewers a few times where they hadn't read the
material in question, but he had and knew it very well.

~~~
euroPoor
Doubtful that a clinical psychologist would grasp 300 books in a highly
mathematical field. You know, next to doing his job.

I’m not saying he isn’t smart just that his conceptions about Continental
philosophers stem from poor understanding and shallow reading of the
philosophers’ works.

~~~
simonh
At the time that was his job.

~~~
euroPoor
Reading books he's missing the bare basic understanding of?

------
Hitton
You can disagree with Camille Paglia's ideas, but one must respect her for her
integrity and commitment to honest academic debate, which is sadly lacking
nowadays in most western universities.

~~~
akhilcacharya
> sadly lacking nowadays in most western universities.

Where do we still have "honest academic debate" then?

~~~
dmaldona
Anonymous internet forums.

------
hos234
"The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his
wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind"

We live in interesting times. Teachers of the Paglia calibre, have become
visible to larger and larger numbers of students worldwide. And that raises
the bar for all those who claim to Teach.

------
Animats
_“These minor French theorists have had a disastrous effect on American
education. Lacan encourages pompous bombast and Foucault teaches cheap
cynicism, while Derrida’s aggressive method, called deconstruction,
systematically trashes high culture by reducing everything to language and
then making language destroy itself.”_

She's right, but it really upsets many academics for someone to say that.
Good.

~~~
erokar
I think her analysis is wrong in that regard. American puritanism is more to
blame. French universities do not suffer from the current campus hysteria.

~~~
thinkingemote
I think having free education (e.g. in some EU) makes students appreciate
their education. Education is a privilege and something to be earned for many.
The universities have more power over the student life as they know best.

Having students pay for everything (e.g in US) makes their education into a
product and they are the consumer. Students can then demand to have certain
conditions met. The consumer knows best, is king.

~~~
philipps
I had not seen this interpretation of the perceived value of education before
and find it intriguing (and tentatively agree). I am surprised there aren’t
more dissenting comments because it flies in the face of the free-market
libertarian interpretation of value, which would argue that people do not
value things that are free.

~~~
upvotinglurker
A clearer way of stating it might be not "the euro students value their
education more because it's free," but "the euro students value their
education more because college attendance is determined by academic status
rather than ability to pay. So, they had to work hard at their studies to get
into college, and must continue to perform well academically or risk being
kicked out."

Whereas in the US, college attendance generally* is determined by ability to
pay, and a student who can pay will almost certainly be able to find some
college that will let them attend, whether they take their studies seriously
("value their education") or not.

*Of course achievement still matters if you want to get into the most selective institutions ... but I gather you can do that with (a lot) of money, too.

------
grey-area
Camille Paglia is over-rated IMO. I've read a couple of her books and there is
little of substance there under the gnomic bombast and pseudo-academic jargon.
An example from the start of her most famous book:

 _In the beginning was nature. The background from which and against which our
ideas of god were formed, nature remains the supreme moral problem. We cannot
hope to understand sex and gender until we clarify our attitude toward nature.
Sex is a subset to nature. Sex is the natural in man._

What does this really mean? Does it mean anything? I find it truly hard to say
with any precision. If anyone is trying to make language destroy itself it is
Paglia with her vague, circular, name-dropping arguments. If the rest of the
book then tried to justify these assertions that'd be ok, but it continues in
the same vein for hundreds of pages.

If you accept her vitriolic and reductive definitions of these interesting
thinkers (Lacan, Foucault, Derrida), you are doing yourself a disservice.

Foucault to take one example is far from cheap cynicism and more rigorous and
accessible than Paglia in every sense. Where is the cheap cynicism in The
order of things (les mots et les choses) or Madness and Civilisation? These
are really important works about issues that will be studied in 100 years,
unlike Paglia's empty posturing. They're asking questions like What is normal?
What is madness and how does the definition change? Questions which were ahead
of their time and still vital and interesting today.

~~~
cjfd
Actually, the quote sounds like a profoundly wise thing to say. Anyone who has
ever noticed in him/herself that sexual fantasies are not necessarily very
political correct should know this. E.g., rape fantasies as either the
perpetrator or the victim occur in large percentages of the population.

~~~
honzzz
I have to admit that I fail to see any connection between that quote and the
thing you wrote about sexual fantasies. Also, that thing about sexual
fantasies... is it not obvious? Does anyone need to read a book to discover
it? I might be missing something and I want to be corrected if that is the
case but so far it seems like one of those cases when famous authors write
something so vague or even empty that people project their own discoveries
into it and get affirmative pleasure from that.

~~~
jimbokun
Seems like Paglia is stating the blindingly obvious, because so many in her
field were rejecting it?

------
peignoir
I recommend reading fools fraud and firebands on the matter by Roger Scruton
as long as Taleb on the dictatorship of the minority
[https://link.medium.com/P6JRZtgtuZ](https://link.medium.com/P6JRZtgtuZ)

I’m deeply worried about the evolution of the universities it looks more and
more like a cult is taking over instead of science debate and rationalism over
emotions...

------
RickJWagner
As a conservative, I like to read Camille Paglia. I don't always agree with
what she writes, but I find a lot of it well thought-out and very sensible. We
could use more writers like her.

------
weiming
"Behind that devotion to heterodoxy lies something softer. She admitted that
she’s chosen to censor herself in front of her students [...] I don’t want to
upset them. The historical material is too painful for a music class,” she
said."

I don't know if this is representative of the current times, but sad if so.

~~~
simonh
Her primary goal is to teach the students. You don't serve a novice mechanic
well by asking them to build a Formula 1 racing engine from scratch on their
first day in the machine shop.

She's not saying that material is not worthy of study, clearly she thinks it
is because she did teach it in class previously. She just found that the
material didn't provide the best platform for education in the subject
relevant to the students.

EDIT: Note that the reason for changing the material was not due to the
students being soft. It was because "The historical material is too painful
for a music class". The point of the class was to study music, not the
historical context of the lyrics, so selecting such historically charged
material distracted from the actual purpose of the course.

~~~
C1sc0cat
So studying the musical theory of say "strange fruit" (Meeropol) rather than
including the historical context?

------
jolux
Paglia is one of those conservatives who is incredibly transphobic and hides
it behind the facade of being a “provocateur.” She has defended the completely
absurd belief (in this case, proposed by Sheila Jeffries) that cross-gender
hormone therapy is a conspiracy by big pharma to get trans people taking
hormones for life, among other things:

“In it she [Jeffries] argues among other things, that the pharmaceutical
industry, having lost income when routine estrogen therapy for menopausal
women was abandoned because of its health risks, has been promoting the
relatively new idea of transgenderism in order to create a permanent class of
customers who will need to take prescribed hormones for life.”

From [https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-
standard/camille-p...](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-
standard/camille-paglia-on-trump-democrats-transgenderism-and-islamist-terror)

Bioidentical estradiol is a generic medication with many manufacturers and
costs very little. There is not very much money to be made manufacturing it.
More profitable would be the GnRH agonists, frequently used as the puberty
blockers which she claims are so potentially dangerous. However their benefit
is clear, and furthermore there is an entire field of medical research devoted
to understanding the impacts of those drugs, and so far nothing in the
evidence suggests blockers are significantly risky at all, let alone anywhere
near as dangerous as the increased risk of suicide that trans kids have going
through the wrong puberty.

Source for much of this: I’m a trans woman, also a pharmacology, psychiatry,
and endocrinology nerd. I’m not taking hormones for life because I “need” to,
I’m doing it because I want to, as is every other trans woman I know. If that
changes, I can stop. It’s as simple as that.

~~~
devtul
Blockers have a negative effect on bone density and it is unknown if they
affect brain development. I guess we will only really see the negative
effects(if any) in a couple of decades.

[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/when-
transgender-...](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/when-transgender-
kids-transition-medical-risks-are-both-known-and-unknown/)

~~~
jolux
The bone density risk is the only one that has been shown reliably, and even
then it’s not enough to warrant not using them. A review of the current
literature shows the evidence on brain development impact to be spotty. And
here’s the Endocrine Society, saying they’re safe and effective:
[https://www.endocrine.org/news-room/press-release-
archives/2...](https://www.endocrine.org/news-room/press-release-
archives/2013/medical-intervention-in-transgender-adolescents-appears-to-be-
safe-and-effective).

The doctors treating trans children keep up to date on this literature and
should definitely review risks with parents and children. I personally had to
sign an informed consent form stating that I had to assume I’d become
immediately and irrevocably sterile upon starting treatment, but this is
widely known among trans women to not be the case. Medical science is
absolutely still catching up on transgender care, but all the concern trolling
about risks in popular media is unwarranted. I had several unsuccessful
suicide attempts in my adolescence, and I’ve been a loyal HNer since around
the age of 14. That’s the huge risk that doctors and parents understand, and
doctors, being for the most part hardcore utilitarians (particularly at the
research level) will gladly take the small risk of blockers over that one.

~~~
rtmaximo
I have trouble understanding the need to transition as a close friend is just
undergoing it. Though I support him/her, I cannot bend my mind around it? What
are the perceived benefits? In what way is it that different from using
different clothes without the (not sure if small or big) risk of health? Is it
not enough to know oneself is X or Y or Z identity-wise? Why is there a need
to externalize it and externalize it in this particular way? At risk of
sounding condescending, one particularly hard thing for me to understand is
the need for the rest of her friends to call her appropriately especially
since she is just beginning. If someone called me a girl or a woman (common
childhood insult where I grew up, and very bad in its own way) I simply could
not care less.

What are the benefits of putting oneself over such a hard (at least it seems
socially and medically) ordeal to change how others perceive one? One thing I
know is that expecting others to perceive us in a certain way is a losing
proposition. We can only change ourselves and it is unreasonable to expect it
from everyone else I think.

Once again, sorry for being so extended, I just would like to understand
better my friend. I have tried asking her and she seems to have a block around
it, saying that I would not understand. At a certain level I feel this is only
a superficial change I think but then if it's that small then why bother? (I
mean my friend still has his same personality and mind)

~~~
jolux
>What are the perceived benefits?

If you’re a man, how do you know you’re a man? Is it because of your genitals?
If you looked down at your groin tomorrow morning and saw something different,
would you still think of yourself as a man? Or would you suddenly believe
otherwise?

>In what way is it that different from using different clothes without the
(not sure if small or big) risk of health?

My body is physically uncomfortable for me to exist in for significant periods
of time, because it feels wrong. Health risks from just estrogen are increased
risk of clotting and breast cancer, but in line with what cis women
experience, from what current evidence suggests. Anti-androgens change this a
lot, and I don’t really want to get into it because of how varied it is.

>Is it not enough to know oneself is X or Y or Z identity-wise? Why is there a
need to externalize it and externalize it in this particular way?

You say later that it’s an insult to be called a girl or woman where you grew
up. Imagine if it felt the same way to be called a boy or a man.

>At risk of sounding condescending, one particularly hard thing for me to
understand is the need for the rest of her friends to call her appropriately
especially since she is just beginning. If someone called me a girl or a woman
(common childhood insult where I grew up, and very bad in its own way) I
simply could not care less.

To put it simply: you’re not trans. And to ask another question, wouldn’t it
bother you if people called you a woman and furthermore treated you like one
all the time? (it’s ok if not, but there are some cis people for whom it
would. trans people are more like those cis people in those ways.)

>What are the benefits of putting oneself over such a hard (at least it seems
socially and medically) ordeal to change how others perceive one?

Because it hurts _that_ much. It just feels _that_ wrong.

>One thing I know is that expecting others to perceive us in a certain way is
a losing proposition. We can only change ourselves and it is unreasonable to
expect it from everyone else I think.

Sadly, most trans people are well acquainted with this fact. And that is why
we end up going through this ordeal. Unreasonable to expect it from other
people? No, I wouldn’t say so. Unless you think it’s reasonable for people to
expect you to shave your whole body and grow your hair long and start wearing
blouses and dresses and skirts, which is the other side of this coin.
Unrealistic? Perhaps, and that’s what being an activist in this area is about.

>Once again, sorry for being so extended, I just would like to understand
better my friend. I have tried asking her and she seems to have a block around
it, saying that I would not understand.

She probably does think you wouldn’t understand. This is something cis people
do have a fairly difficult time understanding, and it’s not easy to explain.
The best I can explain is if you woke up tomorrow and everyone around you
started acting like you were a woman, but nothing had actually changed about
you.

The _interventions_ might seem superficial, but it’s not about what they
physically do to our bodies. It’s about how those changes feel to us, and how
they quiet the discomfort we often feel with our bodies. The identity is
already with us, it’s our bodies that we feel the need to change.

Please don’t feel bad about the length. These are difficult things to discuss.

------
hristov
I actually followed Camille Paglia from her time as salon columnist and found
her really annoying. First of all for someone being celebrated for being
provocative she is depressingly mainstream. Her views are generally center-
right. She supports and repeats whatever views and opinions corporate america
chooses to foist on us, supports the military industrial complex and is
guaranteed to go gaga over every female celebrity sex symbol the mainstream
media chooses to trot out for our adulation.

But she does everything in such complicated convoluted language (liberally
throwing in a lot of intellectual talk about sex in there) that she makes
herself sound brilliant, radical and revolutionary for dumbly and
unquestioningly following the same corporate mainstream.

It is really a shame because not all social science is bullshit. There really
was great social science and literally theory being done challenging the
status quo and looking for ways to make societies better but people like
paglia merely just take the air out of the conversation, by taking up
attention “being provocative” while not saying much.

------
jstewartmobile
What effect does this have on anything?

From what I'm seeing, the struggle of Paglia-Peterson vs the dastardly
postmodernists has about as much effect on the real world as royal weddings.
Tabloid shit for pseudointellectuals.

------
pjc50
But that's assuming the conclusion!

The whole point of gender studies is the idea that biology is not destiny,
especially in social interaction. The roles we play and the relationships we
have with each other aren't a mere clockwork expression of our chromosomes.
They are far more memetic instead.

You can't point to a spot on the Y chromosome that is responsible for unequal
pay.

Edit: I know it's frowned on to complain about downvotes, but would people at
least try to understand what the nature and purpose of gender studies is
before dismissing it?

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
Oh yes you can: men have testosterone, so they're more aggressive, which turns
out to translate to asking for more pay raises more often and changing jobs
more quickly if unhappy with their pay. Hey presto, a biological basis for
unequal pay. Now obviously this doesn't explain _everything_ about unequal pay
-- but it would be foolish to ignore entirely, no?

~~~
cygx
Nurture can trump nature, though: There are matrilineal societies where
competitiveness is considered a feminine trait.

As is often the case, it's not simply either/or.

~~~
jplayer01
Okay, what does this have to do with what she said?

> We cannot hope to understand sex and gender until we clarify our attitude
> toward nature. Sex is a subset to nature. Sex is the natural in man.

She's not saying that biology is the sole factor that determines how we
behave. She's saying that we need to understand it and integrate it into our
understanding of cultural, psychological, sociological artifacts. Or more
importantly, we can't understand them without taking into account biology. I
don't see anything wrong here.

~~~
cygx
Nothing wrong with it as long as you avoid the traps of naive essentialism or
fallacious appeals to nature.

~~~
jplayer01
None of which she does.

------
sprafa
Peterson lost a lot of credibility for me when he took a group selfie with
some guys with a big Pepe The Frog flag. I mean it’s kind of funny but 90% of
the Pepe memes are actually racist and horrible (from what I’ve seen). After
that I couldn’t take his alt-right denialism very seriously.

It’s a shame because I actually think some of his talks are quite good.

~~~
qazpot
So you disregard a person's all opinions only because he took a selfie with
bunch of people and a cartoon character and the 90% of the said cartoon
character's memes you have seen are racist and horrible.

~~~
sprafa
Ah well if you see the selfie you might change your mind.

But yes.

The main thing for me was I rarely if ever see Peterson smile. And in this
photo he’s grinning ear to ear.

~~~
_iyig
>The main thing for me was I rarely if ever see Peterson smile.

Where do you usually look for his smile? In footage of high-pressure media
interviews and public debates? In the photos carefully selected by the editors
of whichever news sites you browse?

Could be he just likes meeting fans, and is amused by a goofy cartoon frog.
See also: Hong Kong protestors’ use of Pepe, and prevalence of the meme among
less politically-afflicted but still sad and disaffected young men on the
Internet. Also mainstream on Twitch.

~~~
Glide
It’s sad to see people fall for guilt by association. In most interviews that
Jordan Peterson has when he talks about meeting his fans is when he sounds the
happiest.

This really is what Scott Adams talks about with two movies and one screen.
The interpretation of events speaks more about the interpreters rather than
the actual events now.

~~~
sprafa
This is not guilt by association. He didn’t happen to be around when they took
the photo, he’s clearly enjoying having the Pepe flag in it.

[https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vkSEmNoqhZY/maxresdefault.jpg](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vkSEmNoqhZY/maxresdefault.jpg)

I wasn’t going to mention it because sometimes I think it’s just 4chan trying
to have a laugh by making everything appear controversial, but the guy on the
left is doing a pseudo white nationalist symbol (even though again, I’ve heard
it’s not, but sometimes yes? I don’t know everything is confusing now.)

I judge people by their actions as much as their words. And this, to me, is a
very strange photo.

~~~
stronglikedan
> the guy on the left is doing a pseudo white nationalist symbol (even though
> again, I’ve heard it’s not, but sometimes yes?

No, it's not now, and never was. It's always been the "OK" symbol, and always
will be (as in, "Everything's okay over here!"). That was just some pathetic
campaign from the left to get someone in trouble that merely disagreed with
the "agenda".

~~~
sprafa
Relevant article. The plausible deniability of the gesture seems to be part of
its appeal to 4chan and Proud Boy trolls.

[https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/09/18/ok-sign-
white...](https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/09/18/ok-sign-white-power-
symbol-or-just-right-wing-troll)

~~~
stallmanite
Ok so us normies out here who use the ok gesture and have no idea about the
stupid 4 chan meme are going to be considered white nationalists now? Seems
like a good way to make a problem where there isn't one.

~~~
sambal
“Normies” don’t use the word “normie”, and the label of harm applied by the
SPLC isn’t prescriptivist, your beef is with the white nationalist Internet
kids.

------
ptah
>" In the early 1970s, as she was finishing her doctoral course work, a new
school of literary studies gained its first U.S. foothold at Yale and would
eventually overthrow New Criticism as the main way academics would interpret
texts in English departments across the country. "

It sounds as if she resents having the text interpretation methodology she
spent a lot of time learning become irrelevant so quickly

