Word: paglia
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Camille Paglia alleges in The Crimson (Feb. 7, 1994), "[t]he standard of academic debate in this country is very low," then she must take her share of the blame for this situation. Lurching from soundbite to soundbite, Paglia mistakes overblown rhetoric and ad feminam attacks for analysis and insight...
...That Paglia herself is a woman and a self-described (anti-feminist) feminist in no way lessens the misogyny of her attack on four female Harvard faculty. It is indeed telling that what the four faculty members whom Paglia attacks have in common is not their ideological sympathies nor their sexuality, but their gender...
...particular, Paglia accuses Professors Barbara Johnson and Marjorie Garber of "posturing" as feminists for the sole purpose of advancing their careers. The absurdity of Paglia's accusations hardly needs comment. Since when did being a feminist help any woman's tenure portfolio? Paglia paints a picture of an Academy so terrorized by feminist ideologues that the old boys faintly cower in terror, their hands--no doubt--cupped in front of their, er, more private parts. Move over, Harvey Mansfield and endowed co., here comes Lorena Bobbitt and not only is she pissed, but--much worse--she's tenured...
What does prudence say about rape? Paglia says it succinctly: "Sex, like the city streets, would be risk-free only in a totalitarian society." Given certain intractable facts about men and sex, there is an inevitable trade off between safety and freedom. There is no way women will be able to "take back the night" completely. Individual prudence and responsibility will have to take up the slack. Paglia blasts feminists for blinding women to the this simple fact. "A girl who goes upstairs alone with a brother at a fraternity party is an idiot," She writes. "Feminists call this 'blaming...
...Paglia and Mansfield teach us that the purpose of justice should not be, as some would have it, to make the world ideal. Given human nature and the fact that people don't agree on what the ideal society should look like, making the world ideal would entail an unacceptable amount of coercion. It's true that liberty has its own costs and hazards, including risk, conflict, hostility, insecurity--even rape. But like the very first liberals, paglia and Mansfield both think the price of freedom is worth paying...