The Opinionated Bastard

I’ve been re-reading Camille Paglia:

Sexual Personae : Art & Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson

And I’ve been struck again by how great it is. She’s got a book of poetry out now (not hers, just pieces she’s selected with her commentary).

Break, Blow, Burn : Camille Paglia Reads Forty-three of the World’s Best Poems

I hardly ever buy poetry, because as she says in her introduction, most of the “Modern Masters” suck. I didn’t know why until I read her introduction, but now I do. :-) Here’s an excerpt

Anyways, I Googled her today and found two great pieces:

Crisis in the American Universities is a speech she did at M.I.T. Here are some great excerpts:

The problem of the last twenty years is that people think that “liberal” and “conservative” mean something. The liberal and conservative dichotomy is dead. The last time it was authentic was in the Fifties,

The situation right now is that we have on one side people who consider themselves leftists but to me, as far as academe is concerned, are phonies, people who have absolutely no credentials for political thinking, have no training in history, whose basic claim to politics is simply that nothing has happened to them in their lives. A lot of these people have money. I’m sick and tired of these New Historicists with trust funds. I’m so sick and tired of it. And because they’re pampered, their whole lives have been comfortable, because they’ve kissed asses all the way to the top, they have to show they’re authentic by pretending sympathy for the poor lower classes, the poor victims.

Pre Iraq War Interview is an interview about the war she did. Remember she’s an art historian, but she’s also a realistic true thinker, and she gives criticisms of the Bush administration even I would agree with, while at the same time criticizing the critics as well. I’m glad that there are people out there who consider themselves leftists without being idiots. Here are some cool passages:

What do you think of the antiwar movement that is taking shape in the U.S.?

Well, I had great hopes for it but am discouraged. I turned on C-SPAN with great excitement to watch the big march in Washington last month. But talk about shooting yourself in the foot! Several speakers were good, but most of them tried to drag all sorts of extraneous issues into it — calling Bush a “moron,” accusing America of imperialistic ambitions, “No blood for oil” — all these clichés. When fringe, paleo-leftist voices take over the platform, it drives away the moderate, mainstream people in this country who have nagging doubts about this war.

Why aren’t more public figures speaking out about the war, both pro and con, outside of the usual circles? I mean, on the antiwar side, of course, we have some high-profile Hollywood liberals like Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon …

Yes, that’s one of the problems. Of course actors have a right and even obligation to speak out. But so many of them — not Sarandon, whom I respect — come across as witless or knee-jerk. They question Bush’s intelligence, or they sneer and snort. They don’t sound fully mature; they don’t sound like they’ve fully considered the complexity of the positions that any president and his administration have to take. The infestation of the issue by posturing celebrities and the usual suspects on the fruitcake far left make people think, “I don’t want to be one of them.”

And then there are the intellectuals like Susan Sontag and Noam Chomsky who’ve made a career abroad out of anti-Americanism. Sontag’s made no secret of her lifelong adulation of all things European. My take is different: My immigrant family escaped poverty in Italy, and so I look at America in a very positive, celebratory way. So I’m reluctant to become part of this easy chorus of anti-Americanism.

I wonder what she thinks now? Some of what she worried about (and I worried about as well) hasn’t come to pass.

Anyways, I love Camille, as I love anyone who’s as opinionated as I am. Its the fuzzy headed people who annoy me. If you haven’t read Sexual Personae order it immediately and read it. It’s probably the best art history book I’ve ever read. Even though I didn’t agree with everything she says, Camille can think, dammit, and its apparent on every page.