Letters to the Editor
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Feminist role model?
Camille Paglia has some interesting insights, although I suspect that some of her opinions are aimed more at sparking debate than at expressing her true feelings on a given topic.
But Ann Coulter as a "feminist role model in her appetite for aggressive debate"?" I'm sorry, but considering "an appetite for aggressive debate" in isolation from Coulter's other character traits in this way is demeaning to the feminist movement and to women in general.
Is Dick Cheney a "masculine role model" because of his appetite for aggressive debate? No, he's a brutal war criminal who's so blinded by his lust for power and sense of his own rightness that he's willing to attack anyone who disagrees with him.
Just like Coulter, who's not a war criminal only because she hasn't had the opportunity to become one... yet.
Sorry Camille, you just shed a big chunk of credibility.
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Stick to pop culture, Camille
I've actually been a Paglia fan for awhile...I loved her book on THE BIRDS, SEXUAL PERSONAE, and her articles for "Interview" but man, get her going about politics and you get...well, absolutely nothing unique, interesting, or informative. Just the same right-leaning B.S. from a depressing source. Doesn't Camille know that the idea of the media being owned by the left is so hopelessly tired? Coulter is a paragon of feminism? Now, is that the feminism that Paglia admires or the one she spent most of her career railing against? Where does one end and the other begin?
Hate to say this, Salon, but on the basis of her poorly written, intellectually underwhelming last two articles here: Dump her. She's broken and burned in the past...now she just blows.
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nitwits
what a catalogue of hatreds from the comments here. anti intellectual, anti the older, anti older female professor, the list goes on. is this what the new younger and hipper voter is all about. seems a bit narcissitic and unable to tolerate anthing besides their own navels. keep it up and you will lose yet another election. i am neither left nor right at this point but the comments have really ticked me off. good for paglia , the only good thing to read this morning. a very distasteful array of comments by nitwits with half the intelligence and beauty of paglia. i look forward to more commentary from her.
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Minority report
Wow.
Last time it was black people serving her barbecue chicken. Now it's free cocoa beans. I can't wait for next time where Camille hangs around some cotton fields and gets enough raw cotton for her son's home economics class to weave a blanket.
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newts "affair"
Is it a surprise really,the slime ball divorced his wife on her hospital bed to wed his lady of the time ,that was one marraige ago, he was a bigger draftdodger than Clinton and cheny combined and now a great warhawk like the rest. is no memory longer then a week.
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Why Bother Reading Ms. Paglia
I can't fathom why you re-hired Ms. Paglia. I don't think her post-feminist perspective is challenging, insightful, informative or even interesting.
Aren't there other strongly opinionated persons with odd and contradictory views that might at least be fresh to Salon readers?
I read the first couple of articles out of fairness to see if her hiatus had resulted in any growth or in at least a more interesting analysis of current events. I won't be reading any more of them.
P.S. Perhaps the next column can focus on the great debate as to whether the Earl of Oxford or Christopher Marlowe wrote the plays and sonnets attributed to Shakespeare - just make sure to throw in a couple of unrelated quips attacking other women for not being Paglia-ish enough.
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I feel bullied and manipulated. What do I do?
I’m not sure what to do here. Do I write and play into a net that seems to have been laid for me, or ignore a piece of writing in which an author states that the word “fag…t” is excusable dialogue because it is only a school yard taunt? It is a school yard taunt, and gay kids are bullied and beaten up in school yards.
Ms. Paglia, I’ve never read your books, but you seem to write not to engage in thoughtful discussion, but just to create yourself as a product: Because you will ‘dare’ to insult hundreds of writers and thinkers on the left who do engage in thoughtful self-critical examination, you now, in your mind, become the arbiter of truth. “Camilia Paglia the only one who dares!” might be your product slogan.
And others buy your package.
You cut a rather sad figure. I have compassion for you.
I find it interesting that this piece appears just after an examination of Coultier. Both women seem to be defining themselves, in different ways, as icons of free dialog. They both do it by substituting snide generalizations for actual thought. Worse, by being snide, and really, hateful and insulting, they make hate and insult ‘good.’
I suppose what I read between the lines sounds like this: “Hey, it takes daring to call people “Fag. . .t.” Look how everyone is angry at me. They are just being politically correct, liberal, uptight and blocking free speech. See how right I am! Slurs and generalizations are not only okay, they are evidence of critical thinking."
Salon, I applaud your wish to offer a diversity of views, but this writer does not represent true diversity. She creates herself as diversity in a can, a can with botulism.
How sad all this is. I feel manipulated and bullied. My guess is that Paglia herself is manipulated in ways she does not fathom – her product is being used to do harm, not good. This article sadly lessons the level of discussion. I hope that is not its point.
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...It's a drawl!
Hillary's "aping" of a Black Southern Drawl?
Come on.
Let's not do to our crop of 2008 candidates what we did to our 2000 and 2004 nominees.
Republicans and Conservatives are more than able to do that.
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The media is liberal
Paglia is right about liberal media bias. Liberals have the media and the universities all sewn up. thank goodness for Fox, which presents a different viewpoint. The reason liberals hate Fox is because of an element about liberals that conservatives for the most part do not share. Conservatives think there is a difference between life and politics. You fail at politics, well you just go on with your life. Your job, your house, your church, your community is still there. You won't be taken to jail because of your opinions or religion. Liberals want to change the underlying conditions that make the job, the house, the church, especially the church possible. They want the government to be in a position to tell people what kind of house they should have, if they should go to church, where they should live, what they should teach their children. They don't just want to preach, they want to use the rule of law to change all the basic conditions of life. In a way liberals are right. Everything is political. We just don't think that our having a house to live in is the result of a political decision, but it is, just like having more than one pair of pants is possible because of the laws, or perhaps lack of laws that make commerce and the free use of one's money possible. Liberals would like to pass a law saying everyone can only have two pairs of pants because it is unfair for one person to have more than another. They imagine that one day they will be able to pass some laws that make everything fair and right.
I do not agree with everything Paglia says, but she is honest.