Letters to the Editor
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The many false or silly statements of "Arlo Figg"
Arlo Figg wrote:
"Camille Paglia's intellect is wasted on a lot of the posters on this thread."
I admire her intellect when she displays it. Usually it is better suited to issues like sexuality and pop culture. Paglia was an important voice in the Great Political Correctness Debate of the early 1990s. She helped to deflate the overreaching feminists who wanted to change words like "women" to "womyn," or to claim that all sex is rape. (Those feminists, incidentally, were always in the minority, but they were contributing to a cultural chilling effect that Paglia was very helpful in counteracting.) I mention all of this to provide context for my disappointment with this recent, far less worthy output from Paglia's intellect.
"I've never read a more insightful take on Al Gore, Camille's also a armchair geologist, fantastic."
I don't know what you thought was so insightful about Paglia's take on Al Gore. Basically all she did was to say she found him too self-aggrandizing. That's an insightful take? And are you really that impressed that Paglia has a passing interest in geology? (At this point I thought your letter was tongue-in-cheek.)
"It's a sad scary fact that many superior-minded supporters of Gore are so ignorant of science, perhaps this just reflects how wanting an American Liberal Arts education is these days."
Paglia herself has a Liberal Arts education. Most liberal arts degrees do require a minimum proficiency in at least a couple of the sciences. But don't take liberal-arts people's word for Gore or for global-warming theory: It is the scientists themselves (the ones with multiple scientific degrees) who have attested to the credibility of the claims in Al Gore's movie and to the likelihood of human-cased global warming.
"The gushing idoltry exhibited at the feet of Al Gore at the Oscars was embarrasing, science majors in India and China could see right through this charade."
I watched the Oscars and I don't know what you are referring to. Al Gore was the presenter of one award, and he made a brief, self-deprecating joke. Some people laughed. I am not sure that qualifies as "gushing" or "idolatrous." Then, when the movie he was in won an Oscar (he didn't actually win anything; the producers did), a few of them made speeches and naturally their speeches mentioned Al Gore since without him there wouldn't have been a movie. Again, I fail to see how this is "gushing idolatry." (By the way, I contacted a few of your science majors in India and China, and they told me to tell you they think you're full of shit. Ha ha, just kidding, actually they said they were too busy taking over the global economy to watch television.)
"An Inconvenient Truth is psuedoscience of the highest order."
Of the highest order? Really? And what do you base this conclusion on? Did you even see the movie? Which part did you find factually lacking? So basically you're saying that watching "An Inconvenient Truth" is akin to using an Oijua Board, right? That's funny because my local Natural History Museum doesn't have regular screenings of Oijua Board.
"There's never a universal concensus in the scientific community about anything, generally."
That's funny, there's certainly a universal consensus in the scientific community about the sun being at the orbital center of the universe; and atoms being made up of electrons and protons and neutrons; and DNA being composed of a double helix; and so on.
The very nature of science is that everybody is a skeptic. Even established science is greeted with skepticism. That's how knowledge bases get formed, that's how information gets refined and more detailed. But there is a big difference between science that is well-estabished and science that is still in its early, uncertain stages. On that continuum, human-caused global warming is much closer to the "well-established" side.
"That's right, this present warming cycle started a few tens of thousands of years ago and has been punctuated by several cold snaps superimposed on the general warming trend."
Everything I've read about global warming suggests that current trends far exceed any fluctuations in the historical record, especially when correlated with C02 levels (a correlation strongly suggestive of causation). Somebody here mentioned that human-based C02 output only accounts for 10% of all atmospheric C02, but 10% is a hell of a lot when you consider the size of the earth and the ability for 10% of anything to affect a system (imagine adding 10% more water to an Olympic-sized swimming pool).
"Big bad civilization was nowhere to be found when the present global warming trend started."
Evidence? The global warming trends I've seen examined tend to focus on the late 20th century. What are your sources?
"An Inconvenient Truth is a convenient work of propaganda for more government taxation."
So it's a big conspiracy, is it? I am sure it is possible that thousands of people could collectively have a so-called Chicken Little Syndrome where they secretly wished to scare everybody into concern for the effect of pollution and rampant growth on the earth just because they wished to profit from government funding somehow. But do you really think that's what's going on? Isn't it possible that educated scientists are actually, sincerely convinced that global warming is a real concern? Why is that hard for you to believe?
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LBS
How thoughtful of you to summarize the spins in the letters for us. What would we do without you?
Just thought I'd better make sure there was SOME sarcasm represented in this stack of mail.
I gather you were not being sarcastic when you claimed "[The letters] are diverse, and the writers generally take care to explain that they celebrate differences in opinions"???
I don't see YOU celebrating difference of opinion. I just read you as wanting Paglia off Salon's pay roll. How open minded is that?
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Tightening things up a bit...
Hi Camille,
I've been reading your article and enjoying it very much. Although I frequently disagree with things you write, I very much appreciate your friendly style, and your wit and verve. On page 2 of this article, in response to "TZ" you wrote "You're absolutely right: the loss of American credibility and moral standing because of the Iraq incursion is a devastating tragedy. The damage will take several presidencies or more to heal, but some of it may be irreparable. A whole generation of radical young jihadists has been spawned around the world who see the United States as the Great Satan, an entrenched system of military and cultural oppression that must be attacked by any means."
Where I would dispute your take is to say that, love or hate President Bush's Iraq policies, a whole generation of young jihadists around the world who see the United States as the Great Satan had already been spawned before 9/11. Poor Daniel Pearl was had his head hacked off by these folks in February 2002. The U.S. invaded Iraq in March of 2003, 13 months later. Iraq merely gave those jihadists another reason to hate us, and a focal point outside of our borders. The U.S. Embassy bombing in Kenya, the U.S.S. Cole bombing, the first World Trade Tower bombing, the Khobar Towers bombing, and others which I am sure I have forgotten to list here, all point to a very militant and jihadist world-wide campaign against the U.S. and her interests which was in full bloom long before 9/11 or George Bush's decision to invade Iraq. Whether one believes that invading Iraq was a correct response or not is legitimately debatable. But what is not really debatable is whether that jihadist enmity against the U.S. predates 9/11 and the Iraq invasion, and that rightly or wrongly decided, whether the invasion was a response against radical jihadists and their actions, rather than the other way around.
What I think that you can legitimately claim is that a new generation of jihadis hates us and has enlisted in the war against us, much as young teenagers today enlist in our own military in response to the threat they perceive coming from radical Islam.
Thank you again for a great article.
Very truly yours,
Chris