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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Dee Dee
Published Letters: 90 Editor's Choice: 1
Camille will probably drop Salon before Salon drops her, but I say keep her coming. She's unusually thought-provoking, courageous and funny. (Salon's answer to Maureen Dowd, though I don't think those two like each other!)
I love this writer! I love Salon for hanging with Paglia despite some very grumpy readers who, from my perspective, either take her too seriously, don't see what she's about, or are so triggered by her (lately somewhat subdued) narcissitic vibrancy that they can't see her smarts.
Paglia has raised the question before about how appropriate it is for teenagers to be trapped in buildings where they strive to sit quietly and passively for most of the hours of the day. Having been myself a very good student, I had not previously bothered to think about how some of my well-loved but trouble-making classmates would have fared had they been in vocational programs instead. I'm a big fan of liberal arts education for all, but perhaps for some students that kind of education would be best delivered another way or at another time. It's hard to imagine how it would work, but I like very much that Paglia asks big cultural questions such as that.
Karl Rove makes me cringe--everytime I've heard him he comes across as the meanest person alive--but Paglia's comments about Cheney seem right on. He's the Darth Vader of them all.
And who are we liberals to be so confident that the Republican candidates didn't fare better with the American public than the Democratic candidates in the most recent debates? We were CERTAIN that Kerry and Edwards won their debates in the last election cycle. How could ANYONE watching those debates have thought otherwise? Liberals run the risk of being too arrogant to think that the American public wouldn't admire qualities that they don't. It's not smart NOT to pay attention to how the public (others) might be viewing the candidates...
I'd take Rosie any day over Donald. But oh well. Maybe they kind of deserve each other.
Thanks for a fun, thoughtful read. I was delighted to see Camille Paglia on the menu today!
Emily & Cid: Your letters are really great! What a fabulous dialogue. I'm learning much from each of you as individuals (about Mormonism, about being an open-hearted liberal atheist) and your interpersonal skills too! I can't wait to hear Cid's reply. You two could start your own column!
I really like what John Edwards is saying in this campaign, especially his clear headedness about health care and the two Americas. And Barack Obama sounds great on these issues too. For some reason I trust Obama more when it comes to getting out of the war. Maybe it's that his whole style seems more "zen" to me. Anyway, I agree with Camille that these are the two Democrats to keep watching. I also think it's great that she's scouting out the Republicans! How arrogant for us to assume they couldn't win just because Bush is down.
to you both, Camille and Joan, for your guts and grace as writers for Salon.
Speaking for myself, and I suspect for others, I would not be able to take the yapping adolescent-like reactions you get from a handful of readers in this letters section. (I really don’t understand the response “I’m going to cancel my subscription if you keep publishing a certain author”—how narcissistic, and it seems especially inappropriate when the author under personal attack is someone whom I’m guessing gets the most clicks and letters per article on your site, connects to a lot of OTHER readers, and whom many of us respect as one of Salon’s earliest contributors, whether she riles us up or not.)
I’m a big fan of Elizabeth Edwards (as well as her husband, Obama and Hillary), and I loved Elizabeth’s willingness to take on Ann Coulter directly. To me, her actions modeled the approach I wish more schools adopted in response to bullies; instead of catering to them, or passive-aggressively whining about them, just calling them out. But I also see how it takes a lot of maturity not to join the fray when the bullies are being publicly sadistic, whether those bullies are on air or in the Salon letters section. I applaud Camille and Joan both for the way you stay above the fray even as you stay engaged with us all.
It makes sense to me that in this current postmodernist/ post-structuralist time, when nothing is sacred and everything begs to be deconstructed (perhaps one of the most democratic, broadly creative and playful of critical eras?), Paglia’s structuralism will feel out of place to many readers. My reading of Paglia over the last 20 years is that in her worship of nature and art, she finds much larger connections than most of the rest of us do, especially those of us who have rejected religion. But why should we be threatened by her voice? My sense is that she's true to her generation; she’s true to her long-held passions; she’s true to her independent view of the world, without being locked to it. I suspect she’ll be open to exploring modern film makers and musicians in response to some of the suggestions in these letters. In the meantime, I continue to be sincerely grateful for the ways she continues to express her ways of seeing the world and to challenge my own perceptions.
From a reader who remembers what it was like to be captivated by Northrop Frye before having a clue who Derrida was...
You wouldn't be one of those "phony soldiers" would you?
Camille's last several columns haven't been so edgy. This one is a treat (if not quite a feast)!
She's lucky to have you. Here's wishing you both the best, for your sakes and ours.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
