Camille Paglia meets her match
Ron Newman
Molly Ivins gives Camille Paglia and her book _Sexual Personae_
a delicious trashing:
Never one to dodge a simple dichotomy when she can set one up, Ms.
Paglia holds that the entire error of western civilization stems from
denying that nature is a kind of nasty, funky, violent, wet dream, and
that Judeo-Christianity has been one long effort to ignore this. She pegs
poor old Rousseau, that fathead, as the initiator of the silly notion that
Nature is benign and glorious and that only civilization corrupts.
Right away, I got a problem. Happens I have spent a lot of my life
in the wilderness, and also a lot of my life in bars. When I want sex and
violence, I go to a Texas honky-tonk. When I want peace and quiet, I
head for the woods. Just as a minor historical correction to Ms. Paglia,
Rousseau did not invent the concept of benign Nature. Among the first
writers to hold that nature was a more salubrious environment for man
than the corruptions of civilization were the Roman Stoics--a
clear-eyed lot, I always thought.
Now why, you naturally ask, would anyone care about whether a
reviewer has ever done any serious camping? Ah, but you do not yet
know the Camille Paglia school of I-am-the-cosmos argument. Ms.
Paglia believes that all her personal experiences are Seminal. Indeed,
Definitive. She credits a large part of her supposed wisdom to having
been born post-World War II and thus having been raised on television.
Damn me, so was I.
...
Paglia's view of sex--that it is irrational, violent, immoral, and
wounding-- is so glum that one hesitates to suggest that it might be
instead, well, a lot of fun, and maybe even affectionate and loving.
Far less forgiveable is Paglia's constant confusion of feminism with
yuppies. What _does_ she think she's doing? Paglia holds feminists
responsible for the bizarre blight created by John T. Molloy, author of
_Dress_for_Success_, which caused a blessedly brief crop of young
women, all apparently aspiring to be executive vice presidents, to appear
in the corporate halls wearing those awful sand-colored baggy suits
with little floppy bow ties around their necks.
Why Paglia lays the blame for this at the feet of feminism is beyond me.
Whatever our other aims may have been, no one in the feminist
movement ever thought you are what you wear....
In an even more hilarious leap, Paglia contends that feminism is
responsible for the aerobics craze and concern over thin thighs.
Speaking as a beer-drinking feminist whose idea of watching her diet is
to choose either the baked potato with sour cream or with butter, but not
with both, I find this loony beyond all hope--and I am the cosmos, too.
What we have here, fellow citizens, is a crassly egocentric, raving twit.
The Norman Podhoretz of our gender. That this woman is actually
taken seriously in New York intellectual circles is a clear sign of
decadence, decay, and hopeless pinheadedness. Has no one in the nation's
intellectual capital the background and ability to see through a web of
categorical assertions? One fashionable line of response to Paglia is
to claim that even though she may be fundamentally off-base, she
has "flashes of brilliance". If so, I missed them in her oceans of swill....
One of her latest efforts at playing enfant terrible in intellectual
circles was a peppy essay for _Newsday_, claiming that either there is no
such thing as date rape, or, if there is, it's women's fault because we
dress so provocatively. Thanks, Camille, I've got some Texas fraternity boys
I want you to meet.
There is one area in which I think Paglia and I would agree that
politically correct feminism has produced a noticeable inequity. Nowadays,
when a woman behaves in a hysterical and disagreeable fashion, we say,
"Poor dear, it's probably PMS." Whereas, if a man behaves in a
hysterical and disagreeable fashion, we say, "What an asshole." Let
me leap to correct this unfairness by saying of Paglia, Sheesh,
what an asshole.
<end of Molly Ivins excerpt>
--
Ron Newman rne...@bbn.com
Tim Starr
On Ivins' citique of Paglia: Henry Louis Mencken said something about how all
philosophers spend their time proving every other philosopher wrong, and,
amazingly enough, they're all right. This seems applicable to this dispute.
Tim Starr
Think Universally, Act Selfishly
R o d Johnson
I read and enjoyed the Ivins flame of Paglia too, and would be honored
to ever create such a mean and funny piece of writing. At the same
time, I have to admit it's not much of an argument, and dear Camille
comes out of it looking like an idiot but with much of her
intellectual apparatus unscathed. Anyone can write a vicious
caricature of someone's ideas and proceed to "demolish" them to great
comic and rhetorical effect, but if the ideas aren't confronted
honestly, it doesn't really count. Ivins wins big, but it's only
funsies, alas.
--
Rod Johnson * rjoh...@vela.acs.oakland.edu * (313) 650 2315
"Ya gotta evolve" --Muddy Mudskipper
Francis Muir
Camille [Paglia] comes out of it looking like an idiot but with
much of her intellectual apparatus unscathed. Anyone can write
a vicious caricature of someone's ideas and proceed to "demolish"
them to great comic and rhetorical effect, but if the ideas aren't
confronted honestly, it doesn't really count. Ivins wins big, but
it's only funsies, alas.
If Miss Ivins has a fault, it is that she has not discovered the art of
not naming the enemy. It is this that seperates her from, say, Swift and
Voltaire (both of whom would "not count" by Johnson's definition). You
may recall that Swift took up this point in the Epitaph that he wrote on
Himself. From which this extract:
Yet malice never was his aim;
He lashed the vice but spared the name.
No individual could resent,
Where thousands equally were meant.
Where did Miss Ivins publish now? Mother Jones? It may well be that that
is what the MJ readers want. Names. Not capable of abstract thought. "No
names, no readers" Nevertheless, I look forward to hearing again from Miss
Ivins. I know she is a fine journalist/critic, will she mutate into something
more?
Fido
Mike Godwin
>
> On Ivins' citique of Paglia: Henry Louis Mencken said something about how all
>philosophers spend their time proving every other philosopher wrong, and,
>amazingly enough, they're all right. This seems applicable to this dispute.
I don't see how.
Molly Ivins's review of Paglia is, even to a Paglia fan like me, both
amusing and on-target. But I wouldn't call it a "dispute." And Paglia's
book is hardly an attempt to "prov[e] every other philosopher wrong,"
since it scarcely concerns philosophers at all.
Oh, and why "Henry Louis" rather than "H.L."?
--Mike
--
Mike Godwin, | "It is feeling that sets a man thinking,
mnem...@eff.org | and not thought that sets him feeling."
(617) 864-1550 |
EFF, Cambridge, MA | --G.B. Shaw
Joe Green
> In the current issue of _Mother Jones_ (Sept/Oct '91),
> Molly Ivins gives Camille Paglia and her book _Sexual Personae_
> a delicious trashing:
>
> Never one to dodge a simple dichotomy when she can set one up, Ms.
> Paglia holds that the entire error of western civilization stems from
> denying that nature is a kind of nasty, funky, violent, wet dream, and
> that Judeo-Christianity has been one long effort to ignore this. She pegs
> poor old Rousseau, that fathead, as the initiator of the silly notion that
> Nature is benign and glorious and that only civilization corrupts.
There is not too much difference between Paglia and Ivins.
As a matter of fact, Paglia does not claim that "western civilization"
errs by denying the above. Paglia claims that "western civilization"
sees nature as an etc. and that its particular glory is the structure
of myth that it erects to transcend nature. This, of course, is
not original with Paglia. Paglia steals these views from
feminist (and other) criticism. The difference is that feminist
criticism abhors the myths that are erected while Paglia claims
that these myths are what make for civilization.
--
Joe Green
> In article <1991Sep2.0...@genie.slhs.udel.edu> st...@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
> >
> > On Ivins' citique of Paglia: Henry Louis Mencken said something about how all
> >philosophers spend their time proving every other philosopher wrong, and,
> >amazingly enough, they're all right. This seems applicable to this dispute.
>
> I don't see how.
>
> Molly Ivins's review of Paglia is, even to a Paglia fan like me, both
> amusing and on-target.
Mike -- How can Ivins be on target when she gets Paglia's
thesis completely wrong?
--
Joe Green
"intellectual eunuch" and Milton named names when he accused a certain
bishop of wearing dirty socks. Pope loved to name names and so did Shelley.
Molly's problem is not that she names names. Her problem is that she
is equal to lashing the Texas legislature but is unequal to lashing
Ms. Paglia -- something that is easy enough to do.
--
Mike Godwin
>
>Mike -- How can Ivins be on target when she gets Paglia's
>thesis completely wrong?
I agree that she gets Paglia's thesis wrong. But she's on-target about
Paglia's habit of generalizing from her own experience--when she writes
about Paglia's not having had fun on a camping trip, it's pretty funny,
and apt.
.
(Note to those who haven't read Paglia yet: Her thesis, in part, is that
civilization and art arise from reaction to, and repulsion from, nature.)
I don't take Paglia any less seriously for the fact that Ivins is so good
at pointing out P's idiosyncrasies. (Again, it is here that Ivins is
"on-target.") Ivins's MOTHER JONES article isn't a substantive attack
on Paglia; it's more an attack on Paglia's attitude. I thought the
MJ piece was bracing, but it hasn't changed my assessment of P one
whit.
William Tsun-Yuk Hsu
>...I have to admit it's not much of an argument, and dear Camille
>comes out of it looking like an idiot but with much of her
>intellectual apparatus unscathed.
So what are some of Camille Paglia's ideas that are worth addressing?
From the comments of my Paglia-hating friends, it's hard to be believe
that there are any.
Bill
Joe Green
> >
> >Mike -- How can Ivins be on target when she gets Paglia's
> >thesis completely wrong?
>
> I agree that she gets Paglia's thesis wrong. But she's on-target about
> Paglia's habit of generalizing from her own experience--when she writes
> about Paglia's not having had fun on a camping trip, it's pretty funny,
> and apt.
> (Note to those who haven't read Paglia yet: Her thesis, in part, is that
> civilization and art arise from reaction to, and repulsion from, nature.)
>
I suppose this is "her" thesis if she claims that it is, but, it is, in fact,
not "her" thesis at all. Almost all of the proof she offers is derived
from the work of others. The only thing original about Paglia is that
she sees the hierarchy that results as a good thing. In other words, she
appropriates the work of feminist (and other) literary critics, declares
that these are discoveries she has made, and then claims that the
sexual personae that she "discovered" are what upholds civilization --
not destructive myths that should be abominated.
Her explications of just about everybody are completely unoriginal.
She only claims that they are original. They pass as original
insights because damn few people bother reading serious criticism.
How could anyone think that she is saying anything new about Blake,
or Bronte, or the "beautiful boy?" Even her appropriation of other's work
is half-assed -- none of the complications are ever included. She
writes about the will-to-power as if the last person to discuss
Nietzsche was Walter Kaufmann. She can seriously write that
Blake's "The Mental Traveller" influenced "Jumpin' Jack Flash" --
"one of rock's most important lyrics." She claims that Sade is
one of the least read major writers and then presents her Sadean
interpretation of myth as something she has discovered herself.
Every major idea that she presents as part of her Sadean interpretation
is taken directly -- directly -- from Barthes (see _Sade, Fourier,
Loyola).
_Sexual Personae_ is a book that should only be read while wearing
gloves.
--
Joe Green
Most of the ideas presented in _Sexual Personae_ are worth addressing.
It's just that very few of these ideas are Paglia's and you would be
better off searching out the originals of these ideas and avoiding
Paglia's confused presentation of them. For example, read G. Wilson
Knight on the homosexual Adonis, read Barthes on Sade, read Frye
on Blake, read Kristeva and Thewelit on Nature/woman.
Yet-- Paglia is good -- and as far as I know -- original on Emily
Dickinson. The last chapter of _Sexual Personae_ is worth reading
for this. Keep your gloves on.
--
Mike Godwin
>
>So what are some of Camille Paglia's ideas that are worth addressing?
>From the comments of my Paglia-hating friends, it's hard to be believe
>that there are any.
I suggest you read her book, now out in trade paperback. My own
Paglia-hating friends, to a person, have not read the book, but have
relied on second-hand accounts.
Paglia's attack on the Rousseau notion that nature is our friend
is not new, but her reemphasis on the psychological/anthropological
significance of sexual dimorphism is worthwhile, as his her (new
to me) notion of transcending nature and gender through what
she calls "sexual personae"--artistically crafted sexual identities.
Mike Godwin
>Paglia also "generalizes" from just about everybody -- without attribution.
I saw a lot of attribution in SEXUAL PERSONAE, and the books Index lists a
number of the sources (Knight and Barthes, to name two) you mention, Joe.
>I suppose this is "her" thesis if she claims that it is, but, it is, in fact,
>not "her" thesis at all. Almost all of the proof she offers is derived
>from the work of others.
Ah, so the thesis about art versus nature is copyrighted? I thought it was
clear that she was deriving her work from the work of others, that she was
admitting doing so, and that this is a legitimate thing for literary
critics to do.
C'mon, Joe, she's not as nasty as all that.
> The only thing original about Paglia is that
>she sees the hierarchy that results as a good thing.
It's also hopelessly untrendy, which is why she's getting attention
(that and her knack for self-promotion).
>In other words, she
>appropriates the work of feminist (and other) literary critics, declares
>that these are discoveries she has made, and then claims that the
>sexual personae that she "discovered" are what upholds civilization --
>not destructive myths that should be abominated.
I agree with this, except for the part about "appropriation"--I mean,
when I was a grad student it was *required* that we take ideas from
other critics.
>Her explications of just about everybody are completely unoriginal.
>She only claims that they are original.
I'd like the original source for her comparison of Lord Byron and Elvis.
>They pass as original
>insights because damn few people bother reading serious criticism.
I suppose I qualify, since I don't read much criticism anymore.
>She can seriously write that
>Blake's "The Mental Traveller" influenced "Jumpin' Jack Flash" --
>"one of rock's most important lyrics." She claims that Sade is
She is not using the literary sense of "influence," I think. But in any
case, her comment is slightly different from what you say here:
"The Mental Traveller has renewed life in one of rock's major lyrics, a
song it surely influenced, the Rolling Stones' 'Jumpin' Jack Flash.'"
--SEXUAL PERSONAE, p. 281
I agree that it is unlikely that the poem literally
and directly influenced the Stones song. But who knows? Maybe if you put
the lyric side-by-side with the poem you'd see something amazingly
parallel.
>Every major idea that she presents as part of her Sadean interpretation
>is taken directly -- directly -- from Barthes (see _Sade, Fourier,
>Loyola).
Isn't it just possible that she got it directly from Sade?
Francis Muir
Most of the ideas presented in _Sexual Personae_ are worth addressing.
It's just that very few of these ideas are Paglia's and you would be
better off searching out the originals of these ideas and avoiding
Paglia's confused presentation of them.
I wonder if Joe Green is not missing the point. Miss Paglia is a populariser,
not an inovator. For every one person who can spare the time and energy to
search out sources, there are a hundred who just want the material posted in
reasonably straight-forward and entertaining form. The fact of the matter is
that it is Miss Paglia who has caught our attention in rec.arts.books, not
the persons from whom you believe she has cribbed.
Philomath
R o d Johnson
Beats hell out of me. I haven't read much by her. In the one piece I
looked at carefully, in Harper's, she came across as a total
bubblehead, and, through some sort of idiocy field effect, caused her
companion, the usually sensible Neil Postman, to turn into a
bubblehead too.
My point, if it was a point, is merely that while Ivins did a swell
dis on Paglia, she really didn't address much of anything with any
seriousness. That's OK. But Paglia's next move would be to (a) claim
that Ivins totally missed the point, that (b) that's because Ivins is
stupid, and (c) Ivins is just a whiskey-swillin', honky-tonkin',
cowboy-lovin' Texas tart, and then we get into the usual round of
celebrity pundit mud-wrestling and STILL no one has any idea what the
fuck Camille Paglia is talking about. Something like that, anyway.
Tim Starr
}In article <1991Sep2.0...@genie.slhs.udel.edu> st...@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
}>
}> On Ivins' citique of Paglia: Henry Louis Mencken said something about how all
}>philosophers spend their time proving every other philosopher wrong, and,
}>amazingly enough, they're all right. This seems applicable to this dispute.
}
}I don't see how.
}
}Molly Ivins's review of Paglia is, even to a Paglia fan like me, both
}amusing and on-target.
I found it to be right for the wrong reasons about half the time.
But I wouldn't call it a "dispute." And Paglia's
}book is hardly an attempt to "prov[e] every other philosopher wrong,"
}since it scarcely concerns philosophers at all.
Okay, call it a cat-fight :-). That'll be far more sensitive. Mencken's
statement was an exaggeration in the first place, and that's how I quoted
it. I think they're both about half-right and about half-wrong. The only
reason I like Paglia better is that her half is scarcer than the Feminazi
Establishment Party line.
}Oh, and why "Henry Louis" rather than "H.L."?
Caprice.
Tim Starr -Think Universally, Act Selfishly
Joe Green
> In article <1991Sep3.1...@hemlock.cray.com> n2...@cray.com (Joe Green) writes:
>
> >Paglia also "generalizes" from just about everybody -- without attribution.
>
> I saw a lot of attribution in SEXUAL PERSONAE, and the books Index lists a
> number of the sources (Knight and Barthes, to name two) you mention, Joe.
I think that these attributions are misdirections. There must be
the impression of scholarly apparatus. Usually she includes
a sentence or two from someone or other but what is not admitted is
the degree of debt. For example, she never cites Knight's _The Christian
Rennaissance_ yet most of what she claims as her insights about the
"beautiful boy" are taken from the last chapter of this book. She
does cite Barthes but again never admits the profound debt. Check out the
single sentence from Barthes in the Rousseau versus Sade chapter and then
read Barthes (_Sade, Fourier, Loyola_).
>
> >I suppose this is "her" thesis if she claims that it is, but, it is, in fact,
> >not "her" thesis at all. Almost all of the proof she offers is derived
> >from the work of others.
>
> Ah, so the thesis about art versus nature is copyrighted? I thought it was
> clear that she was deriving her work from the work of others, that she was
> admitting doing so, and that this is a legitimate thing for literary
> critics to do.
>
She could have admitted this in her preface or in any of hundreds of places
throughout the book. The thesis is not copyrighted -- I doubt that many
would want to copyright it in a form so crudely expressed. Again --
the "proof" is derived from the work of others.
> C'mon, Joe, she's not as nasty as all that.
Maybe not. However my feeling is that this is the kind of book Tom Buchanan
might have enjoyed.
>
> > The only thing original about Paglia is that
> >she sees the hierarchy that results as a good thing.
>
> It's also hopelessly untrendy, which is why she's getting attention
> (that and her knack for self-promotion).
It is hardly untrendy. It is the way we live -- the view of the common
man. What is funny is that the guys that want to insist on the hierarchy
must also swallow all the other stuff -- that is they must admit that
woman is nature etc. Since they are queasy about sex anyway this is
difficult. So, the book also manages to piss off George Will. This is
always a good thing.
>
> >In other words, she
> >appropriates the work of feminist (and other) literary critics, declares
> >that these are discoveries she has made, and then claims that the
> >sexual personae that she "discovered" are what upholds civilization --
> >not destructive myths that should be abominated.
>
> I agree with this, except for the part about "appropriation"--I mean,
> when I was a grad student it was *required* that we take ideas from
> other critics.
Yeah -- we'll let this pass. Let's just say the book resembles Martin
Luther King's doctoral thesis -- and with less reason.
>
> >Her explications of just about everybody are completely unoriginal.
> >She only claims that they are original.
>
> I'd like the original source for her comparison of Lord Byron and Elvis.
Just about. I like her stuff on Dickinson for example. The comparison
of Byron and Elvis is trivial and is mentioned all the time. Until now
no one has actually wanted to write about it. (Although I wouldn't
be startled to see the comparison in some journal of popular culture or another.
>
> >They pass as original
> >insights because damn few people bother reading serious criticism.
>
> I suppose I qualify, since I don't read much criticism anymore.
>
> >She can seriously write that
> >Blake's "The Mental Traveller" influenced "Jumpin' Jack Flash" --
> >"one of rock's most important lyrics." She claims that Sade is
>
> She is not using the literary sense of "influence," I think. But in any
> case, her comment is slightly different from what you say here:
>
> "The Mental Traveller has renewed life in one of rock's major lyrics, a
> song it surely influenced, the Rolling Stones' 'Jumpin' Jack Flash.'"
> --SEXUAL PERSONAE, p. 281
>
> I agree that it is unlikely that the poem literally
> and directly influenced the Stones song. But who knows? Maybe if you put
> the lyric side-by-side with the poem you'd see something amazingly
> parallel.
Yeah and then we'll compare Swineburne and "Back Door Man" and Joyce and
"Get a Job."
>
> >Every major idea that she presents as part of her Sadean interpretation
> >is taken directly -- directly -- from Barthes (see _Sade, Fourier,
> >Loyola).
>
> Isn't it just possible that she got it directly from Sade?
>
Fairly unlikely it seems to me.
--
Joe Green
> >
> >So what are some of Camille Paglia's ideas that are worth addressing?
> >From the comments of my Paglia-hating friends, it's hard to be believe
> >that there are any.
>
> I suggest you read her book, now out in trade paperback. My own
> Paglia-hating friends, to a person, have not read the book, but have
> relied on second-hand accounts.
>
> Paglia's attack on the Rousseau notion that nature is our friend
> is not new, but her reemphasis on the psychological/anthropological
> significance of sexual dimorphism is worthwhile, as his her (new
> to me) notion of transcending nature and gender through what
> she calls "sexual personae"--artistically crafted sexual identities.
>
>
> --Mike
>
And even more worthwhile, I think, is the vast amount of criticism
that relates the notion of transcending nature and gender to
the slaughter of men and woman who are associated with nature --
the dark side of the kindly and necessary Paglian apotheosis.
--
Joe Green
Yes, and the fact of the matter is that it was not Nietzsche who
caught the attention of those who wanted to dream a certain dream
but his "popularizers." Too bad for Nietzsche and for a lot of other
fellows, I guess.
--
Mike Godwin
>And even more worthwhile, I think, is the vast amount of criticism
>that relates the notion of transcending nature and gender to
>the slaughter of men and woman who are associated with nature --
>the dark side of the kindly and necessary Paglian apotheosis.
I agree that this criticism is worth reading (and that fiction opposed to
such notions of such transcendence--e.g., Pynchon's novels--are especially
worth reading), but I don't see in Paglia either a rationalization or a
rationale for "the slaughter of men and woman who are associated with
nature."
--Mike
--
Mike Godwin, |"Eros and language mesh at every point. Intercourse
mnem...@eff.org | and discourse, copula and copulation, are sub-classes
(617) 864-0665 | of the dominant fact of communication."
EFF, Cambridge, MA| --George Steiner
Janet M. Lafler
>> The only thing original about Paglia is that
>>she sees the hierarchy that results as a good thing.
>
>It's also hopelessly untrendy, which is why she's getting attention
>(that and her knack for self-promotion).
It's so untrendy that it's become trendy? Wow.
/Janet
--
send mail to: repn...@leland.stanford.edu
"We're living in a PROTESTANT POLICE STATE and all I'M worried about is getting
a job so I can help perpetuate the paranoid patriarchal DEATH culture!"
--Mo
Mike Godwin
>In article <1991Sep3.2...@eff.org> mnem...@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>
>>It's also hopelessly untrendy, which is why she's getting attention
>>(that and her knack for self-promotion).
>
>It's so untrendy that it's become trendy? Wow.
I guess I overdid it on the "hopelessly" part. Trend is zen. The
anti-trend becomes the trend.
Joe Green
> In article <1991Sep4.0...@hemlock.cray.com> n2...@cray.com (Joe Green) writes:
>
> >And even more worthwhile, I think, is the vast amount of criticism
> >that relates the notion of transcending nature and gender to
> >the slaughter of men and woman who are associated with nature --
> >the dark side of the kindly and necessary Paglian apotheosis.
>
> I agree that this criticism is worth reading (and that fiction opposed to
> such notions of such transcendence--e.g., Pynchon's novels--are especially
> worth reading), but I don't see in Paglia either a rationalization or a
> rationale for "the slaughter of men and woman who are associated with
> nature."
>
>
> --Mike
>
Most of the work on this thesis in the last twenty years has shown
that the "sexual personae" that Paglia claims she has discovered
have been used as a rationale for the slaughter of everything that is
"other" -- essentially everything outside the body that must live
by these myths. Paglia suggests (insists actually) that these
myths are necessary to civilization. She pretends that the Apollonian
constructions that rival nature are, of course, beneficent --
see her epiphany before the George Washington bridge (p37) for an
example. That is, the projection of Apollonian desire on the world is
what created civilization and, because the supression and transformation
of the chthonic (the word she prefers) is necessary for this godlike
sublation, it follows that art and civilization as emanations of
the absolute cannot be accomplished without these myths and the
suppression of nature that they promote.
This suppression means, in fact, the slaughter of real men and
woman, the slaughter of the body.
Again, Nietzsche's _Toward a Genealogy of Morals_ is the best source
for this. Klaus Thewelit's _Male Fantasies_ shows it operating
in history.
--
R o d Johnson
>In article <1991Sep3.2...@eff.org> mnem...@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>>It's also hopelessly untrendy, which is why she's getting attention
>>(that and her knack for self-promotion).
>
>It's so untrendy that it's become trendy? Wow.
Janet means "`wow'".
Joe Green
One of the readers of this file who is also a personal acquaintance
has written to me urging that I reveal my personal reasons for
disapprobating Paglia and her sexual personae. Purity of heart and all
that, she writes. So, here goes.
Readers will remember that one of the sexual personae that Paglia
"discovers" is the "beautiful boy" -- the "supreme theme of the
Athenian cult of beauty, the focus of Apollonian space, the fusion
of sex, power, and personality". The beautiful boy is the projection of
western culture's will-to-transcendence, the projection of order and form,
the bearer of the solar disk, matter transformed by light.
In one aspect he is the divine hermaphrodite -- feminine form transformed
into male hardness. He is an intimation of immortality, his body implies
transcendence of the body and, although he is the erotic object of Western
art, he is, in a sense, beyond eros. The secret of his immortality is
his unattainability which is itself a promise of life beyond the body.
Think of the Apollo Belvedere or Donatello's or Michaelangelo's
David, Renaissance angels, Billy Budd, the beloved disciple, then think of
a little boy (God, this is almost 30 years ago) with his mother and one
of America's young poets living in an old house in Cape May, N.J. --
a little boy who is, as yet, unaware of his extraordinary personal
beauty -- a solar, Apollonian beauty, the cathexis of light, a little
boy who will grow up to be man cursed by this beauty and forced to
carry a sword cane whenever he appears in a public place. Yes, I was that
little boy and I am that man.
This is why I want to see an end of these sexual persone, this fastening
of everyone's ontological longings onto my form. I could tell you
stories -- kidnapped by Cardinals and rescued by vestals -- that you
wouldn't believe. I was once drugged by a cabal of beautiful aristocratic
woman and taken to a place that I was told was the Villa Diodati (Milton,
Byron, and now YOU, o Joe!"), and forced to lounge insouciantly on an
ottoman while they gasped and moaned in their curtained recesses.
This sexual personae thing has ruined my life. I AM NOT A SEXUAL
PERSONA! I AM A HUMAN BEING!
I've tried everything except self-mutilation (even I hesitate before
the numinous). I once moved to Boston and wore a black veil whenever
I went out (I didn't think that would be so unusual there) but, again,
they found me -- these woman who call me Telemachus, wreathe me
with flowers, and demand that I demand that they play the moon to my sun.
I won't even try to describe the actions of the other sex -- like long-
legged flies...
The only rest I get is my annual sojurn to Castle Ravenscar. The undead
have other preoccupations.
--
Mike Godwin
>Think of the Apollo Belvedere or Donatello's or Michaelangelo's
>David, Renaissance angels, Billy Budd, the beloved disciple, then think of
>a little boy (God, this is almost 30 years ago) with his mother and one
>of America's young poets living in an old house in Cape May, N.J. --
>a little boy who is, as yet, unaware of his extraordinary personal
>beauty -- a solar, Apollonian beauty, the cathexis of light, a little
>boy who will grow up to be man cursed by this beauty and forced to
>carry a sword cane whenever he appears in a public place. Yes, I was that
>little boy and I am that man.
Life's a bitch, eh, Joe?
lewis.h.mammel..jr
>
> This suppression means, in fact, the slaughter of real men and
> woman, the slaughter of the body.
Do you mean the slaughter of Real Men, so that only pale shadows
or whatever are left? or the actual slaughter of actual men, like
the Indians ( which was my first reaction. )
... and who's the woman?
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Joe Green
>
>
> Lew Mammel, Jr.
You're right, Lew. What I meant was the slaughter of real men and women.
I have to grit my teeth to write this stuff because I am certain that
a lot of the guys and gals reading it know about this and
are a bit bored with talk of the Other, the omnific word,
the phallogocentric text, the great chain gang of being, and so on.
But, the history implicit in words cannot be separated from deeds --
we need to get away from this sexual personae stuff and sail
in stranger seas.
--
Lisa S Chabot
And now we know where Elvis lives! Minnesota, right? Hey, and I'm
wearing my loon t-shirt! My horoscope said I'd need to pack today...
--
In times of stress, remember to keep your bowler on
and watch out for criminal masterminds.
Fiona Oceanstar
made me think of Hadrian's love for the youth Antinous, as chronicled
by Marguerite Yourcena:
"Je finissais par retrouver dans cette passion differente
tout ce qui m'avait irrite' chez les maitresses romaines: les
parfums, les apprets, le lux froid des parures reprirent
leur place dans ma vie. Des craintes presque injustifiees
s'etaient introduites dans ce coeur sombre; je l'ai vu
s'inquieter d'avoir bientot dix-neuf ans. Des caprices
dangereux, des coleres agitant sur ce front tetu les anneaux
de Meduse, alternaient avec une melancolie qui ressemblait
a de la stupeur, avec une douceur de plus en plus brisee.
Il m'est arrive' de le frapper: je me souviendrai toujours de
ces yeux epouvantes. Mais l'idole souffletee restait l'idole,
et les sacrifices expiatoires commencaient."
Gotta watch out for those broken-down douceurs: they're your only
warning that boy-frapping is about to commence.
When the French throw souffle's ("l'idole souffletee") at their loved
ones, is that like pie in your eye?
But seriously. I think you're just jealous of Fido.
All those people in love with him and all.
--Fiona
Joe Green
>
> But seriously. I think you're just jealous of Fido.
>
> All those people in love with him and all.
>
> --Fiona
>
No, I am simply grieved by his passing.
This weekend, in fact, I visited the wind grieved Appenines--
those airy zones usually visited only by the chamois light
and the eagle fleet--to try to forget my grief. It is as if there
is no more piper at the gates of dawn or as if the Great God Pan
is again dead. The more I read the manuscripts in Fido's marvelous
trunk, the more I believe that the light never yet seen on land or sea
has passed away forever.
I stood and looked at the perpendicular central rock of the Todi
(a Swiss Miss on my arm, the promise of hot chocolate and midnight
yodel in her eyes) and, at that moment, the unseen sun broke
through the cloudy mass and I saw a golden eagle with a titmouse in
her beak. Mine eyes dazzled and I heard a great voice
declaim: (and at the same time I heard the strains of Mozart's
Music for a Masonic Funeral!)
Fido, eyes turned inward,
Rests his cheek on the cold moon.
O! Do not ask him why he weeps.
Great gods weep for themselves alone.
And he is as stone
And tumbles through the interplanetary night
in a cold that chills even immortal flesh and bone.
A god adrift in a universe of Seem!
Of what then does he dream?
Why, he dreams of home.
Of windwrecked, swanswept heights
Flame rush skies, Foam rush seas!
Striding through the rainsweet day
And many a maid of Thessalay
Lay ripe and eager beneath the olive trees
And dreamt the possible -- the feathered deity!
Then, this god who came as a swan
As beautiful as a poem,
Who shook, like us, with oceanic longings
Beneath a spring moon,
Alone came before your triune King,
Who, somber and wan,
Dressed in a seamless robe, in the place of Law,
Denied him his ancient rights,
And cast him out beyond geography!
And, are you now beyond him --
Utterly touched by your sexless God,
Your Spiritus Mundi, his fingers cold as ferns,
His breath stinking of his resurrection?
Answer!
When you wake at night
To find your slow thighs parted,
And no sign of the Kindly Light,
Do you listen for the sound of wings?
I saw a form winging its way toward us! "Oh, my dear Fido," I cried.
Ah, but then, ah, then I saw what it was -- a leathern-winged gnome, his body
gyved about with the works of Thomas Love Peacock and Arthur Ransome,
a toasting fork in one hand and his other hand reaching for the maid
by my side! I tried to beat him back with my sword cane, this creature
from the abyss with the face of T.S.Eliot, but it was too late. He had
already fastened his claw around the maid's pigtails and was flapping
away with her even as my fingers fumbled for my pistol. She gave
a cry of despair. O horrible! The creature responded with a fiendish
cackle and they disappeared into the mist.
I spent the night in the chalet and polished off all the Fra Angelico.
Slumber's chains had bound me when I was awakened by a sound
in the stilly night. I threw on a cloak and strode to the
balcony and there, as if from a infinite distance, I heard my
own dear maid yodeling! Yodeling, yodeling like she never yodeled for me.
It went on all goddamn night.
--