Word: paglia
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Paglia, for one, sees men and women for what they are--not for what we'd like them...
Prudence is better than idealism. Mansfield and Paglia reject the naivete of idealism and advocate prudence instead. Prudence is a political and personal virtue suited for real humans who inhabit a world filled with danger, risk, irrationality, prejudice, conflict and instability. Other words for prudence are realism, common sense and street smarts...
Today's liberals have naively bought into too many bad European ideas. Paglia and Mansfield point to two fundamental ideas in particular--both with bad consequences. The first is the presumption that "human nature" is a fiction and that man is a complete product of society. This idea, which came from Europe and was promulgated by Rousseau, has ultimately infiltrated the American university and is now taken for granted in many intellectual circles. On this view, bad things--like rape and homophobia--have been socialized into good people by a bad society. The solution? More socialization: With the right combination...
...particular, were never noble savages--they're natural savages. "Hunt, pursuit, and capture are biologically programmed into male sexuality," Paglia writes. "Generation after generation, men must be educated, refined, and ethically persuaded away from their tendency toward anarchy and brutishness. Society is not the enemy, as feminism ignorantly claims. Society is woman's protection against rape." Men's natural biological instincts--not society--tell men to ravish women...
There is such a thing as human nature. Paglia and Mansfield agree with the time-worn proposition that there are intractable facts about human behavior that we would be stupid to ignore and naive to try to change. This includes the fact that people tend to be selfish, that people tend to hold prejudices and that there are fundamental differences between women...