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R E C E N T L Y
More darts at Foucault's scrawny haunches
Ken Starr's strange sexual persona A tale of two Blooms
Can actors (or wrestlers) be great leaders? Forget Foucault; remember the facts
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A L S O
About Camille Paglia
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C O L U M N I S T S
The Reluctant Capitalist Left Hook Unspun Right On! Mr. Blue Word by Word Media Circus On Television Under the Covers Let's Get This Straight Home Movies Second Thoughts - - - - - - - - - -
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A S K_C A M I L L E +|+ C A M I L L E+P A G L I A | PAGE 2 OF 2
Greetings, Camille:
I have discovered your column only recently, and I enjoy it quite a
bit. However, I am somewhat disturbed by the complete absence (at least
in the columns I've read) of any mention of physical science, math or
other technical fields when you discuss education. You advocate
"arts-centered educational reform" without mentioning anything about the
role of the physical sciences in such an education. You attack (with
good cause, to my mind) political correctness and other such bullshit
that permeates academic humanities, but you never make mention of the
decidedly different culture to be found in a university's science
departments. Indeed, in my admittedly limited reading of your column, I
don't recall one single mention, positive or negative, of any technical
field.
I certainly appreciate that your expertise does not
necessarily lie in the physical sciences (any more than does mine in
psychology, for example), but technology, the tangible outcome (or
byproduct, depending on your perspective) of science is so pervasive in
our society that the absence of science (or math, or even
engineering) in your columns seems rather glaring. So, I am thus left
to wonder if you are opposed to the methods and aims of science (which
seems a bit unlikely to me), or if you are just ignorant of it or
apathetic toward it? Or have I just read too small a sample of your
work?
Nicholas J. Condon
Dear Mr. Condon: Thank you very much for your query. Actually, my attack on the disrespect for science among fast-track humanities professors has been one of my tangible successes. Others, including practicing scientists, have taken up the charge with gusto. My clashes with fellow feminists over science in the early 1970s led to my expulsion from the women's movement: It was a period when feminists were claiming hormones had no significant influence on human sexual behavior and that science was an evil conspiracy by white heterosexist males. The anti-science bias of poststructuralism and postmodernism has produced a generation of colossally ignorant humanists who hold lavishly salaried top positions at the elite schools. My forcing of science back on the humanities agenda is clear in the controversial first chapter of "Sexual Personae," as well as in my critique of Foucault in "Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders" and in the published transcript of my turbulent 1991 lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where my defense of science won cheers among the jeers. As recently as my Nov. 17 lecture on educational reform at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (which was broadcast last weekend by C-SPAN), I denounced women's studies programs for their failure to make science study a prerequisite for credentialing teachers who specialize in gender issues. I also lauded archaeology as a splendid tool for introducing students to history and to the scientific method (a Greek practice refined by the Enlightenment, so maligned by Foucault). As for engineering (which my Roman ancestors practically invented), in "Sexual Personae" I called construction "a sublime male poetry" and praised America's great bridges as works of art: Whenever I see a giant crane passing on a flatbed truck, I wrote, "I pause in awe and reverence, as one would for a church procession." There are too few women in engineering programs -- and not because of gender discrimination, as feminist think tanks claim. In "Junk Bonds," I argued that professors must take responsibility for stripping down the overgrown college curriculum to a core with basic required science courses. My own favorite science is geology, because of its vast time frames. Indeed, my college geology professor invited me to consider geology as a career -- which I do dream about every time I drive by a stratified cliff or fly over a mazily meandering river. Dear Camille:
I am curious as to your thoughts on the story in the Nov. 25 New York Times, concerning quite a bit of academic hand-wringing over a
collection of paintings by Alberto Vargas and other pinup artists
donated to an art museum at the University of Kansas by Esquire
magazine. The "issue" seems to be how the hell can we, as anti-sex
academics, reveal these incredibly sexual paintings to the world and
still be good little feminists? One student, however, is not falling for
it. From the article:
"To the 27-year-old Ms. Buszek, Vargas Girls -- she prefers them over the
work of [George] Petty -- are nothing short of feminist icons. In her 'third-wave
feminist' view, pinups are 'an all-purpose icon for the sassy, tough,
punk-rock, sexy woman.' The pinup, she argues, was a major weapon in
World War II, a 'modern war goddess.' Although she originally intended
to do her doctoral dissertation on a 'dead European guy' (the
19th century Spanish artist Mariano Fortuny y Carbo), she now intends to
analyze and defend pinup art from a feminist perspective."
What do you think about this? Will pinup art ever get the respect it
deserves, or will campus Stalinists be allowed to decide what is
politically acceptable art for the rest of us? As your humble servant, I
await your reply. And remember, to the rest of us, you are the ultimate
modern war goddess.
Craig in Columbia, S.C.
Dear Craig: Of course, as you can imagine, I am a devotee of the lewdly luscious Vargas girls, whom I celebrated several years ago in a Vargas retrospective in Esquire. I also love George Petty: I once discovered a gorgeous Petty print in a dingy curio shop in San Francisco and bought it as a gift for my partner, Alison, who framed it for our living-room wall. Typically, the ever-PC New York Times censors out where the feminist pinup fan got her inspiration -- from me, of course, whether she knows it or not! The inaugural doyennes of "third-wave" feminism, Susan Faludi and Naomi Wolf, simply spouted the second wave's puritanical party line about sexual images until market-minded Ms. Wolf, trying to catch up to the Paglia bandwagon, did a 180-degree turn in her second book. Like Johnny Appleseed, I am content to plant the orchards and breeze on through. Let the apple-eaters munch on! I leave botanical history to the future.
Dear Camille:
Do neo-pagans like you celebrate Christmas? Do you sing hymns and carols
and go to Mass on Christmas morning? What do you want Santa to bring you
this year?
Good King Wenceslaus
Dear King: The Christmas season, with its noxiously upbeat carols, is a living hell for my particular pagan sect. Being forced by teachers in elementary school to sing that namby-pamby ditty "Silent Night, Holy Night" year after year was a totalitarian atrocity that I have yet to recover from. Oafishly hearty Santa Claus can bloody well keep his damned distance. I celebrate the hallowed midwinter solstice at the Dec. 18 birthday of my kick-ass idol, Keith Richards, the diabolical soul of the Rolling Stones. Rock on!
I'm hugely enjoying Pearl Jam's powerhouse new CD, "Live on Two Legs," and
reflecting yet again on the failure of the women's rock bands to produce great
lead guitar work. Alas, that incisive, soaring, high-pressure sound remains a
brilliant male genre.
Santa or the PC censors getting you down? Ask Camille. |
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