At every single stage of my intellectual life, the only person who was intelligent, witty, and frank enough to command my full attention and respect has always been Camille Paglia.
Whether it was the "culture wars" of the early 1990's or the debates about the "morning after" when my supposedly "liberal" colleagues at Brown were embarrassing the ideals of open academic debate by purposely shouting down speakers who had come to campus, I always had amazing respect for her ability to see past the bullshit and the petty politics of the moment and tell it like it was.
I was first seduced by her logic as a freshman who didn't buy the brainwashing that "Rape is not sex, it is violence" and that a woman cannot give consent – according to Rhode Island law at the time – after having imbibed any amount of alcohol. I thought the ideas that rape could not even be argued to be what it is – a form of sexual violence that is inherently different from a non-sexual assault – infantile and plain stupid; I also thought that any true feminist should bristle at the implication that she can't assume responsibility for her own actions after having single glass of wine, placed into the same legal category vis a vis sex as mentally retarded people or children.
Yes, before ya'll good "liberals" start flaming with statistics about date rape and the hidden scourges of sexual molestation, incest, and other forms of sexual violence, let me just tell you – I know. But what I appreciated about Paglia's fierce and fiery words about the subject was how she articulated what should have been perfectly obvious to even the most addle-brained frosh feminist – that women laying claim to sexual freedom and the right to no longer be saddled by the restrictive sexual roles, regulations, and double-standards of the so-called "sexual revolution" means that this is no longer compatible with being treated like a child.
To paraphrase Spiderman's granddad – "With great freedom comes great responsibility."
Put in concrete terms, a true feminist point of view – by "feminist" I don't mean some vulgar sense of an artificially-enforced "equivocating equality", but the belief that a woman should have every right, freedom, and privilege that any man might have – tells society that things aren't in black-and-white and that having a glass of wine does not take away one's right to give consent. Why are we infantilizing and condescending to women again?
In the same way, I was shocked at hearing coordinators of "date rape" workshops castigating anyone who spoke up against the silly idea that a woman who drinks way past her weight class and passes out on a bed at a frat party should "have the right" to not be raped as a woman walking down the street in a short skirt.
Sure – I agree, in theory. But in practice, if I were that woman's friend or father, I would say that you're being stupid and that you shouldn't do certain things that will place you in a position to be more likely to get raped. And that's what rape is, to those of you who don't like my passive-tense usage there – it's a loss of power, choice, agency – whatever you want to call it.
But it is something more – it is sex. Violent, selfish, psychically abusive – but sex. And that's another thing early-1990's dogma and date rape workshops could never accept. When I raised my hand to suggest that "isn't rape and physical assault different?" I was condescendingly reminded that "Rape is violence. Period."
Mmm hmm.
Camille Paglia – whose ideas about rape and violence in 2006 aren't anything radical or new to a much savvier, more practical feminist view of the present day – simply said what is now perfectly obvious: sex involves negotiations of power, takes place in dark places, and is as seductive as it is dangerous. To me, to say that rape isn't sex takes away the special, particular power to scar that rape possesses, which is why getting jumped, beat up, and your wallet taken is by leaps and bounds different from having your legs forced open and a penis pushed inside you, whether by physical or psychological force.
To me, such an infantile view of "Sex is violence. Period" cheapens the meaning of "rape." It may seem more obvious now, but back then, to say so meant you were some knuckle-dragging Neanderthal who just didn't "get it." Now, I realize that those people were the true intellectual Neanderthals who didn't "get it."
"Rape is an outrage that cannot be tolerated in civilized society", she wrote, "yet feminism, which has waged a crusade for rape to be taken more seriously, has put young women in danger by hiding the truth about sex from them." (taken from the Wikipedia article, since my copy of Sex, Art, and American Culture is in a box back in the US).
This is the same time I was first reading Foucault, hated it, felt guilty for hating it, then realized that I should hate it. It's dense, turgid, and as historiographically problematic as "history" as it's theory is self-referential and flaccid. There are some useful ideas, but it's mostly Frenchified (not french fried), mentally mastubatory mumbo-jumbo. Camille saved me from the guilt, and I quote:
"American students, forget Foucault! Reverently study the massive primary evidence of world history, and forge your own ideas and systems. Poststructuralism is a corpse. Let it stink in the Parisian trash pit where it belongs!"
For me, Camille has been on point on almost every topic I've managed to catch her on, even into the now.
This is all lead-in to her most recent article on Salon.com (here's a link to the single-page version of the article), in which her mode is the same frank, direct, intellectually honest one I remember. It's refreshing to hear her articulate far better than I ever could – and with more humor and erudition than I could ever muster – on such topics as why most so-called "liberals" are snide, close-minded, and just plain annoying, why I, at a base level, don't like Noam Chomsky but still assign some of his readings and teach a few of his concepts to undergraduates, and why I think Michael Moore has lost the comedic high ground and why Al Franken was never funny – they just take themselves too seriously to be effective. As for Chomsky, I just don't like his overall negativity and bleak reading of the admitted failure of what one can call truly great American ideals. I think Camille agrees:
I'm worried about the future of America insofar as our academically most promising students are being funneled through the cookie-cutter Ivy League and other elite schools and emerging with this callow anti-American, anti-military cast to their thinking. How are we ever going to get wise leadership or sophisticated diplomacy from people who have such a distorted, clichéd view about everything that's wrong with the United States? Neither the intellectuals nor the Democrats have any answers to the problems we face. It's not as if the Democrats are offering a coherent and persuasive foreign policy -- they have no foreign policy! They just come across as small-minded politicos jockeying for power.
And we do face an international crisis of mammoth proportions. What should we do in the face of this ruthless and barbaric Islamic fundamentalism? Is there an answer to the problem of Israel? There was a time when the left's call for a transnational Israel made sense to me, but at this point does anyone really think that, if Israel stops calling itself a Jewish state and opens its borders to all Palestinians who wish to return, there would be instant peace? Because of the shocking upsurge in anti-Semitism in the last few years -- exacerbated by the American incursion into Iraq -- surely such a development would mean suicide for Jews who reside in Israel. Passions have become too inflamed among young Muslims all over the world. I think it will be a century before any of this is resolved.
And most liberals don't actually have enough flavor, humor, or wit to make me want to have a conversation with them, let alone attend a protest rally with. And what bothers me most about the people with whom I am often quite closely politically allied with is that many so-called "liberals" are so not. Many of them are close-minded bigots who see "everyone else" in terms of the reductionist, simplistic terms that "liberals" would themselves chafe at if they were forced to sit through an hour of that idiotic blowhard Rush Limbaugh. And it's one reason that the Democrats have been losing the hearts and minds of many middle Americans.
Well, as long as the Democrats are perceived as the anti-religion party, we're going to lose the culture wars. That's why Hillary has made such a show of churchgoing and wearing crucifixes -- even while there seems to be little connection between her Christian ideals and her backstage activities as a politician and money raiser. But religion is absolutely central to this country in ways that Europe's secularized intellectuals fail to understand. I'm speaking here as an atheist who studies religion and respects it enormously. In the history of mankind, the benefits that religion has brought to society in shaping behavior and moral choice are overwhelming in comparison to the negatives, which anyone can list -- like religious wars and bigotry. Without religion, we'd have anarchy.
Religion is also a metaphysical system that honors the largeness of the universe. It's that sense of largeness, which my generation used to call cosmic consciousness, that is missing in the cynical ideologies promoted by the elite universities -- like post-structuralism, which is obsessed with politics and language and has a depressingly debased view of human experience. Post-structuralism doesn't see the stars or the enormity of nature, which for religious people symbolizes God's power. So I think that the constant sniping at religion coming from liberal Democrats is really a dead end.
What I like about her kind of intellectual is that her ideas are rooted in extensive knowledge and careful thought, but argued in a way anyone can understand. Hers is an anti-elitist elitism, in that she forcefully scorns those she considers insipid and stupid, but presents her thoughts in an accessible way.
Her "elitism" marks a divide not between the lay and learned among us, but rather those who are true to themselves (she has a great respect for artists and others who create) or true to the naked, practical truth – no matter how much it may sting, hurt, or otherwise injure that which may lie within the realms of personal, political, or monied self-interest.
Hers is the clear, disinterested logic that tells me that the administrative capital of Korea should be moved out of Seoul, and I should think that because it makes sense, not because I have property here that may drop in value.
Hers is the way of thinking that leads me to know that the US should pull its troops from Korea as quickly as possible, because of the symbolic war we are doomed to lose here, that pales in comparison to whatever minimal strategic disadvantages such a move might pose.
Hers is the logic that lets me know I should continue to do what I do in Korea – to think, photograph, and criticize – and not be cowed by mental midgets and narrow-minded nationalists.
Camille Paglia continues to be an inspiration to me, as well as a check on my own tendencies to follow the way of the herd rather than my heart.
I am very glad to have remade my acquaintance with her.
