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Camille Paglia on Freethought, Feminism, and Iconoclasm Conducted by Timothy J

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Camille Paglia on Freethought, Feminism, and Iconoclasm Conducted by Timothy J force. Questions both ancient and new are freethought, particularly the criticism of new freedom, but also by a new severi- being raised—do women think differently religious dogmas, has played in bringing ty. For it will be enforced by the realities of associated life as they are disclosed about increasing equality for women. than men? How relevant are biological to careful and systematic inquiry, and and social determinants? Is equality As Dewey pointed out, in a paper writ- not by a combination of convention and among the sexes possible, and, if so, what ten in 1931, an exhausted legal system with senti- mean? The following arti- mentality. does this really The growing freedom of women can cles detail the current debates being raised hardly have any other outcome than the about these issues in feminist circles. In production of more realistic and more The significance of this new freedom is addition, they show the important role that human morals. It will be marked by a explored in the following pages. • FI Interview Camille Paglia on Freethought, Feminism, and Iconoclasm conducted by Timothy J. Madigan One does not really interview Camille Paglia—author of the best-selling works Sexual Personae; Sex, Art, and American Culture; and Vamps and Tramps—one gives her a forum to express her free-wheeling opinions in machine-gun delivery style on whatever issues she wants to address. What follows is a prime example of what might be called her "in-your-face feminism."—Ens. REE INQUIRY: You're one of the few America. Fpublic intellectuals whose work is FI: In Vamps and Tramps, you state discussed both on college campuses and that "the silencing of authentic debate in working-class bars. Why do you think among feminists helps the rise of the far you've touched such a nerve? right." CAMILLE PAGLIA: It's pretty amazing. PAGLIA: That's right, and the fruits of Don't forget by the time I burst on the this are now being seen. I've warned about scene five years ago, I was in my forties, this for years—the suppression of debate and I'd gotten absolutely no attention by the liberal wing has moved the entire whatsoever. I couldn't get published. Not nation to the right. People who were sur- only was Sexual Personae rejected by prised by the Republican sweep have sim- seven major publishing houses, but parts ply not been listening to me. It happened of it had been rejected for years by maga- not because of any right-wing conspiracy; zines. it happened because of a spiritual vacuum But by the beginning of the 1990s, the on the left. The left became too removed culture seemed to change, and suddenly from the people. Leftism began 150 years people were listening to me. There was a ago supposedly to speak for the silent big shift. I represent the best of the 1960s, majority, for the people. True sixties radi- which was all about freethought and free calism really was populist. I'm a Clinton speech. I hate dogma in any form. I hate it supporter and I'll vote for him again (God in the Roman Catholic church, which is help me), but he has surrounded himself why I left it twenty-five years ago. I hate air. with these white, upper middle class elite it in gay activism and feminism now. People who are interested in ideas wel- professionals who speak about "the peo- Dogma has also taken over the humanities comed me, and people who cling to a ple" from a very great distance and, in a departments in elite schools—poststruc- fixed belief system find me threatening. very paternalistic, condescending way, as turalism and so forth. I think people are There's nothing more dangerous to a lib- "victims." It is insulting—I'm remember- sick of the ideological and clichéd ways in eral democracy than fixed dogma. I don't ing my background in an immigrant fam- which cultural issues were approached in like coteries. I have struggled to maintain ily when I say this—they are totally the 1980s. So I came like a breath of fresh my outside position, which is very rare in removed from the people they pretend to Spring 1995 5 speak for. These false progressives are Generation X. It's no coincidence that would be so easy for the left to say, "A merely voices of reaction, clinging to out- Kurt Cobain killed himself. What we have moment of meditation in the schools is moded, broken-down liberal ideas. After bequeathed is chaos to the young. The far fine." What is the big deal? People who all, a lot of sixties radicalism was critical right accurately observed the hollowness are religious can think religious thoughts. of the liberal establishment, like Leonard at the heart of our culture; but I disagree Let people just gather their thoughts. Bernstein having the Black Panthers over with the cure that the far right offers. I'm in the posture of attacking the left for tea—radical chic. Liberals were the What I'm saying to the left is, "Wake up! and saying to them "You have spawned worst hypocrites in the 1960s. I despise The far right sees something you are in Newt Gingrich." Rush Limbaugh is neces- "limousine liberalism." denial about" sary. He's one of the few freethinkers in FI: You also say, "To rescue feminism, Everything is blighted for the young. the whole culture. The people at Harvard, we must give religion its due, but require They have reduced aspirations. They are Princeton, Duke, and Stanford aren't free- it to stay in its place." in a dead end. Because of this total neglect thinkers. They're just a bunch of lem- PAGLIA: That has to be done to rescue of spiritual values we have the tremen- mings compared to Rush Limbaugh, all progressive politics. One of the major dous appeal of the right. There's two thou- who's out there with his own independent crises that the heirs to the left have sand years of developed thought behind point-of-view. He's a principled speaker received is the neglect of spiritual values. Christianity. There's three thousand years and thinker, even though my politics are I'm an atheist, but we people of the sixties behind Judaism. So, better Jehovah than not his. The left can no longer claim to be were very spiritual in our own ways. That Foucault. Jehovah at least brings along the voice of the people. is, we abandoned organized religions, but this incredible work, the Bible. What a FI: You also talk about a renewed we sought out Hinduism and Buddhism. great collection of poetry, magnificent, interest in the pagan. Certainly organized We were very interested in cross-cultural filled with things of spiritual use, whether religion had tried to eradicate pagan ele- spiritual experiences. A passage to India, you believe in God or not. The grandeur ments. as it were. and intellectual development of Catholic PAGLIA: The overall theme of my Now what's happened as part of the theology is staggering. Foucault is a work is this: Judeo-Christianity never collapse of the progressive left is a fraud; and that's the diet our best kids in defeated paganism. Instead, paganism, descent into social constructivism, which the elite schools are being fed. It is after the fall of Rome, was driven under- says that everything that we are is made appalling. The man knew nothing. ground, and it has erupted in Western cul- by society. There's no feeling for nature We have destroyed the young's natural ture at three key moments. The first was anymore. The feminism that's being instincts. We told them you cannot look at the Renaissance. Greco-Roman human- taught now is a very shrunken view of life. art without thinking of a prefab social ism came back—Botticelli did a painting We are defined as nothing but social agenda—racism, sexism, homophobia. of Venus rather than the Madonna. The beings, the product of environmental pres- We have destroyed the natural, pleasur- second moment was Romanticism. And sures. There's a whole wing of feminism able response to art. We've turned them the most glamorous of my three eruptions that insists there's no difference between into dried-up cynics. True creativity is the twentieth century. I call it not male and female—we're exactly the same, means being willing to make a fool of Sartre's Age of Anxiety, but rather the Age and we become different because society yourself, letting it all go. of Hollywood. Modern popular culture is shapes us in one direction or another. The left is to be blamed for the appeal in fact an eruption of the buried pagan ele- Gloria Steinern believes that, for example. of the right. The right offers stable, tradi- ment in Western civilization—the very There's another wing of feminism—the tional religious values. And when people things the far right finds most unpalatable. only one that does think of nature—and it marry and have children, they are con- Christianity has never been able to hon- sentimentalizes nature. It sees it as a won- cerned about what kind of values to give estly deal with sex, because it belongs to derful goddess figure, and she's all good. them. That's why so many people are the natural realm and Christianity imag- I criticize that as being Rousseauist; and turning back to the old religions.
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