Letters to the Editor
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hate to break it to you, Salon...
...but Camille's time has come. And gone.
her 15 minutes was up quite some time ago, and while I admire her passion and erudition in things like "Break, Burn, Blow," these days, alas, she sounds like a moron more often than not.
Signing up Glenn Greenwald was a significant coup. signing up Paglia was a lame indulgence. If you can afford it, fine, but I will be skipping her stuff, not because I disagree with her, or find her disagreeable, but because her stuff is often badly written, near-incoherent, often boring or just plain stupid and almost narcissistically self-indulgent--and I think those last are the worst. She thinks way too much of herself for her own, or anyone else's, good..
Camille, it was good to know ye, but now, I really wish you'd just go away.
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So Not Impressed.
I have never read Camille Paglia before, and now I am glad. Perhaps her style is an acquired taste, but to me she seems an inveterate name-dropper and solipsist. From this one article I have learned the title of most of the books she has written, most of the jobs she has held, and how a single article about Hillary Clinton produced the downfall of an editor at a major magazine.
And we were treated to the dismissal of thoughtful magazines as "pretentiously big-think glossy magazines."
I couldn't imagine a more thinkless big thinker than Paglia.
I do have to confess a degree of jealosy, though. If a person can earn a living and hold a position at a university writing such self-centered material there must be hope for me after all.
My Salon subscription is not in jeopardy, but at least I now know which essays I can safely skip over.
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An Open Letter to Salon's Editor's, Re: Salon's Stance on Anti-Gay Rhetoric.
Dear Salon,
Just because someone's a lesbian doesn't mean that they can't be homophobic, and Salon has been complicit in the past in printing virulent homophobia by Camille Paglia. If a gay man continually attacks lesbians as a generalized group through slander and outrageous generalizations, or a lesbian continually attacks gay men through these tactics, it's still homophobia (and arguably even worse, coming from one who doesn't have the excuse of being uneducated or unaware of what such prejudice means). Blithely claiming to be "transgressive" or "un-P.C." doesn't excuse material when in deviates into the kind of material that Salon wouldn't publish as its own or touch with a ten-foot pole if it came from, say, an actual member of the Religious Right. If Salon wouldn't publish regular columns by anti-gay rights religious leaders, then why would it support precisely the same rhetoric in columns written by someone in another profession? Before I'm immediately swept off the stage as some "P.C." crazy, let me give you some specific examples from Paglia's and Salon's past to show you what I mean.
For example, here's Camille Paglia, in the past, on Salon, placing blame for Matthew Shepard's death at the feet of...the gay rights movement:
"It is vulnerable individuals on the front line, like Matthew Shepard, who pay the price for the thoughtless war games of the gay political establishment and their pawns in the urban media elite." (Paglia, Salon 10/28/98) Paglia claims Shepard was murdered, in part, because "gay activism lulled [him] into a false sense of security about the world." (10/28/98) One wonders if Paglia similarly believes that James Byrd, the African-American man who was beaten and dragged three miles with a chain after accepting a ride with three white men, was "lulled into a false sense of security about the world" by the Civil Rights Movement. ...Would Salon still publish and praise Paglia if she made that claim?
So does Salon support the above rhetoric as fair game? It's awfully close to a really sick "blame the victim" mentality. I've seen precisely the same-style arguments about Shepard offered by groups like Fred Phelps' organization (Paglia, at least, doesn't share their glee at vividly imagining Shepard in Hell. Is this the difference to why she gets published on Salon? I notice we don't see Phelps as a columnist or people claiming racist murders are the results of African-American activism on Salon, so it's still unclear where the difference lies).
The above "Matthew Shepard" quotes, though, are, frankly, mild, compared to others Paglia has routinely offered and may not be the best example of excatly what I'm questioning. Gay men are often Paglia's target, and she often makes sweeping generalizations about gay men rarely seen outside the writings of groups like the extremes of the Religious Right. Why is this acceptable on Salon? That she cloaks it in slightly sweeter sounding words probably makes it more, not less, offensive, as casual readers may breeze over what she's just said without realizing the full aim and intent of her rhetoric. For example, read the following quote closely. It sounds rather academic (notice she introduces herself as a "scholar" at the beginning), until you begin to actually look closely at the content of her words:
"As a scholar, however, I am troubled by the provincialism and amorality of the gay male world, when compared to the vastness of philosophical perspective provided by orthodox religion -- or even by ancient paganism, which honored nature." (06/23/98)
Okay: first, what is this "gay male world" other than the most general of major generalizations? Isn't the very definition of "prejudice" (and bigotry), negative judgment of an entire group based on mass generalization? Even just stopping with the first part of that quote, if a Salon columnist began to talk about the "provincialism and amorality of the black world" or the "provincialism and amorality of the Jewish world," do you think Salon would continue to promote that columnist or (much worse), welcome them back like some conquering hero? I'd really like Salon to explain to me if they'd accept and even praise a columnist who generalized in the same way about other minorities.
To make matters worse, in the above suggestion by Paglia, not only does she negatively remove the entirity of her generalized "gay male world" from orthodox religion-- and read the quote carefully, she's not just doing so as a neutral comment on orthodox religion's historical stance on gays-- but in the next sentence she places them outside views "which honored nature." Maybe you have to be gay or have some longterm experience with the vilest rhetoric historically used against gays to see how seriously Paglia is playing with a very traditional ploy used by anti-gay leaders, particularly the extremes of the Religious Right. But I hope others will be able to read what she's saying, and clearly understand her tactics: you separate gay men from "nature" and from "philosophy" or "religion," you generalize about "amorality," and then you can justify taking any action against them you'd like, legal or otherwise. We’ve seen variations of these arguments countless times. What I’d sincerely like to know is why we’re seeing them not only offered on Salon, but presented by a columnist the editors go out of their way to praise?
It’s Salon’s right to publish whatever rhetoric they’d like. If it’s the editor’s desire, they can turn this into a site featuring any number of anti-semites, racists, homophobes, etc. But if Salon’s editors are just going to gloss over it or pretend it’s not there because they merely want some “transgressive” provocateur, then readers have a right to know why Salon is choosing to purposefully go down that path. Your editors, particularly Joan Walsh, should be willing to fully explain this support for arguments that wouldn't be much out of place on some of the sites condemned by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center.