Letters to the Editor
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Sometimes Rhetorical Questions Need Answers Too
Every time you publish Paglia, I'll write in to say how empty and her obnoxious her columns are, and 90% of letter writers will agree with me. Is that really what you want, Salon?
Yes.
You got my clicks, but you lost my subscription revenue last month, exactly because of crap like this [...]
You realize Salon makes more off of advertising ("clicks") than subscriptions, right?
[...] and if you keep doing this you'll lose my clicks, too.
Sure you will.
I'm with Poco. I don't agree with everything Camille writes--I frequently call bullshit on what she does--but the hyperbolic invective levied against her in the letter section continues to astound me. Talk about your sacred cows. So let me get this straight. The Right is bad because it strangles internal dissent, promotes ideological groupthink, and throws anyone on the sword who challenges the party line.
Hello, kettle. This is pot. You are sooooo black.
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The Return of Paglia: Woop De Damn Doo
I will be submitting a bill to Salon for the 12 minutes I wasted paging through this self-absorbed nitwit's rantings. Why not just reprint Maureen Dowd's smart-ass column, so we can be forewarned?
Who asked for this? I want names!
And what a startlingly-brilliant refutation of Global Warming: Al Gore makes her sick, so its all puffery. Next case.
I'm very glad no trees were harmed.
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Camille & Simon
God. You'd think most of us liberals didn't have a sense of humor or irony or inquisitiveness by reading many of these letters.
People who support Salon's decision to run Paglia are lame brained just for that reason? Since when did so many liberals become so closed off to difference--to genuine liberal thinking? Or having any fun? (I can't believe people are complaining about Salon wasting "real estate" to publish an article on American Idol. What is real estate on the net anyway?) Are liberals really becoming a bunch of dried up raisins as we contemplate how awful the world is? Not that things aren't awful, but are we really all totally depressed?
It strikes me that Camille Paglia in her academic/popular culture arena can be compared to Simon Cowell in the American Idol arena. Both pass judgment with arrogant, smart voices. Both are people we hate to love and love to hate. Both add analytical commentary that audiences soak up whether they like that they're doing it or not.
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More Arts, Less Politics
I'm the guy who sent in the letter about the Met's collection. I love Paglia's published writings, for the most part (except, maybe, some of what she had to say about rape back in the day...she crosses the line there, in my opinion, out of ignorance masquerading as knowledge: her ideas about rape come from books and paintings.) I didn't read her first salon column previously, so I'm not sure whether it was predominantly political then. But it seems to me that Salon has now seriously miscast her, or allowed her to miscast herself, as a political talking-head. It just seems obvious that, in that role, she isn't going to be able to contribute much of lasting value or impact.
I would encourage her, and the editors that work with her, to explore ways of bringing more arts and culture coverage into the column. For example, I love the iconic, anthropological but very passionate way Camille writes about Elizabeth Taylor and several other film stars in some of her essays, and her monograph on Hitchcock's The Birds is divine. Camille, the world may need your skills as a film critic and historian of cultural iconography more than as a political commentator. And when you said in your last column that Bush and Cheney had a vampiric relationship, you might want to clue your less obsessed readers into the fact that vampirism is a special part of the critical vocabulary you elaborated in Sexual Personae (Bush as Christabel!?), not just a cheap trick. This kind of integrated balance of culture, art, politics, and media is closer to who you are as a thinker and writer, and since no one else is doing that and you do it so naturally, why swim against the current, to become something you're not?
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What constitutes "groupthink"?
Here are three examples of large groups of people jumping on a bandwagon. In which case(s) were they led by verifiable facts supported by science, and in which not? Would Ms. Paglia and her right-wing cohorts dismiss them all as "groupthink"? Or are there times when facts and science merge so powerfully that large numbers of informed people can't escape reality and suddenly work together to effect worthwhile change?
* Millions of people rushing to get their children vaccinated against polio in the 1960s.
* Millions of people clamoring to get the Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act, and Clean Water Act enacted by the Nixon Administration after eagles, osprey, and peregrine falcons were brought to the edge of extinction, smog was hurting more and more people, especially those with asthma and other breathing disorders, and the Cuyohoga River and other polluted bodies of water were literally catching fire and burning.
* Millions of people supporting a preemptive war against Iraq because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was working in concert with Al Qaida.
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Sanitized Met
Camille,
I really have to contradict Wink L. Mann's comments about the Met. I confess I am a Met employee (note that anything I say is my own opinion and in no way reflects that of the Met), but that just gave me the opportunity to run out in the galleries to check for such "sanitization". I found that while, yes, I saw no or little full-blown intercourse in the vase galleries, there were tons of naked humans with penises exposed - there were naked satyrs, naked athletes, naked boys, boys, boys. One vase even portrayed an athlete pinching his penis to tie it up before a contest. I certainly saw kylixes with older men/younger men portrayed together - a clear reference to Greek institutionalized homosexuality. And finally I can quite confidently confirm that there are tons of naked statue buttocks all over the building (both male and female) - I have enjoyed them many a time myself. Perhaps Mr. Mann needs to open his eyes just a wee bit more or learn to "read" what he is seeing.