Camille Paglia really pisses me off. I read her frequent articles in Salon, knowing full well that I'll have a major head of steam by the time the last word has sunk in.
Her most recent narcississtic ramble somehow manages to combine such frightening observations as the 'class and character' she sees in the President (she seems to think it's a communication problem that keeps the rest of the populance from realizing his brilliance), and the nastiness she sees lurking in the somewhat silly but still profitably generous 'Vagina Monologues'.
She preaches feminism and inclusiveness, but seems to slit her eyes and hiss her displeasure at any brand of girl power that does not pay homage with the proper stength of character.
She slams Eve Ensler for including the undesirable aspects of sexuality in her piece, as though somehow not talking about the negative experience will make it go away, as if continuing to hide the danger will make it less dangerous.
She goes so far to call the production a 'celebration of sexual violence,' and then points her divisive gaze at the academic nurturing ground that spawned it -- what she labels the "anti-male, anti-science, anti-art, anti-beauty, anti-porn ideology" that she feels has sprouted fully-formed from the head of current social theory.
I take offense to that. Perhaps I take personal offense to that, being in part a by-product of one of those 'progressive' college environments. But who is she to say that anyone's view of womanhood, and of being a woman, is inaccurate?
Perhaps it is uncomfortable for Ms. Paglia to think about the women in South Africa and Mozambique who are not only sexually repressed but sexually *changed* by ritual purity procedures. I suppose it does not fit her idealized image of the proto-feminist to have allowed oneself to experience negative sexual experience. Sex is good! Sex is positive! Her truth seems unequivicable, in an area that is anything but. Perhaps in your wealthy white highbrow world, Camille, but not in mine. You're divorced from the average woman's experience, and it shows.
I'd like to know what Ms. Paglia's life is like, perhaps if I had the chance, I'd like to live in her shoes. It seems a rarefied world, hidden from social disgraces except in the distant, critical, objective sense. She casts down her opinions from an Ivory Tower, as her words indicate clearly it's not a world she lives in.
Take, for example, her vehement opinions about what should be done to improve education. The problems, as she sees them, seem wholly divorced from the reality I recall, and even my experience is 8 years old. Times, Camilla, they are a'changin.
She asks what she believes is a rhetorical question: "Can anyone honestly claim that current high school students know more about history, science, language and the arts than students 40 years ago?" I think that query isn't rhetorical in the least.
I'd like to know where Ms. Paglia gets her statistics on what is being taught at American high schools. I, for one, feel rather certain that my education included many aspects and items of history, science, language and the arts that my parents were never exposed to.
My school day was longer, my teachers more highly educated, the subjects more varied. I took calculus, physics, and specialized classes in literature and painting, sculpture, and computer programming. I had opportunities during high school that my parents had never dreamed of, all brought about by advances in educational policy and procedure. Specialized programs -- like two summers spent in scientific research -- and specialized schools -- like the North Carolina School of Science and Math in Durham -- offer opportunities (and challenges) that Ms. Paglia is seemingly unawares of, or at least willing to ignore.
That's her perogative, but I'd not hesitate to belly up to the bar
and wager a little examination. I'd like to see her high school
transcript, and we'd lay it next to my own, and see if there was a
difference. It is a natural fact that all things progress in their
own way, and her backward thinking that the school systems are only
flailing backwards is a distorted perception brought about by one thing
and one thing alone:
Oh, I know. Augh, the humanity. Everyone is seeming afflicted with some sort of nasty bias. That's pretty true. We're taught to be one thing over others, to 'fit in' in order to function. We notice difference, we classify it. We stereotype, whether we like it or not. Some stereotypes are acceptable, others are permissable in degrees. It is acceptable to deny rights to someone because of age or mental infirmity. It is acceptable to assume an educational stature commensurate with the economic or social position one perceives. We assume that our wait-staff are college kids, our secretaries women. Some of us feel more comfortable with female gynecologists or male proctologists.
It is difficult to draw the line between what is personal preference and what is discrimination. It is even more complex to separate what is merely a personal opinion of preference and what is true bias rhetoric -- hate speech, verbal discrimination, the predecessor of a racially, sexually, or politically motivated act.
We like to pretend, we humans do, that the world is perfect. That every individual is judged solely on their merits, that the playing field is level. I think it is of no use, perhaps, to dwell on the inequality, but at the least we can nod to it, respect it, accept it for what it is.
But we don't. We like to see things as equal, we like to see everyone as in their place because they put themselves there. We ignore the influence of early education, financial priviledge, and social interaction. We seem, sometimes, completely unaware of the world outside our own little bubble, the world of the people like ourselves. There is yourself, and there is the other, and we recognize one as familiar and one as foreign.
To Ms.Paglia, my generation is foreign. Our schools aren't the peaceful suburban high school she attended, with gray haired spinsters imparting wisdom by the minute. I have no narcoleptic english lit teacher stories like my dad. But I could tell you about the basketball coach who hit a student over the head with a baseball bat. Or the boy who brought a shotgun to class in 6th grade.
Do you think the experience can be the same when the situation is so different? Note-passing has been superceded by Instant Messanger tm. Schoolyard fisticuffs have been replaced with gang-banging brawls or knife fights, or, worse, gunshots. Teenage girls don't emulate Mom or Sally Ride, they pose as Britney Spears or Lil Kim, emulating sexualized objects put out by a relentless media machine. Family dinner has been replaced by sitcom TV and a cel phone call before bed time.
Frankly, I'm surprised we made it this long without rampant violence. And yet we insist that the problem is with today's youth? We breed children like they're finely crafted SUVs, an attractive but expensive bauble that illustrates our social and mental fitness. We attempt to educate them in warehouses that are little more than prisons -- teachers are, in many cases, terribly ill-suited to be watchful, prepared guards. Why should they be? It is not a teacher's lot to discipline your child, to teach your child hygiene and basic social skills. I've watched my mother, over the years, as she braved an emotional wringer with one neglected child after another. She can only help so much, and many times an indignant but still indifferent parent would actually stand in the way of any sort of connection with the child. It disgusts me to consider those families, the lives of those children. It disturbs me to think of the kind of adults they will most likely become -- distant, cold, disconnected from society.
But can I pretend that I don't see the pattern? Can I simply write off these lost kids as an aberration, denigrate their experience and assume their unworthiness as the 'next generation' to lead us onward?
Time waits for no man -- or woman, even a quasi-famous sort-of-feminist writer. No matter what position you choose to take on the coming generations, it is only really certain that they will be coming and you cannot stop them.
You can choose to simply disparage their choices, call their education a fallacy or their ideas complete foolishness, but they will still be coming. The egalitarian, regal feminism you cherish so deeply is being slowly pushed back by an agressive, messy, in-your-face ballsiness that may seem unsettling. It is. Maybe the old social order isn't good enough now, as what you found when you entered the world wasn't good enough then. We live in different eras, different worlds. Change, though unpleasant, is also unstoppable.
It is our time. We can respect your legacy, preserve at least some of your high ideals, but you cannot expect us to follow the path previously struck. We must strike out on our own.
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