Replies

I have strongly mixed feelings about this one. Paglia's the BEST, her books are epic and she's my educational inspiration and role model.

I'm relieved to see her back in the mix. We've definitely had a shortage of Paglia action in the discourse. Welcome back.

Precisely what makes her such an intellectual force is what really disturbed me about this interview, though. Her ability to detach from the subjectivity and relative historical myopia of the rest of us, and her capacity for "symbolic thinking:" Its a great way to read history and contemporary human activity. But, (finally i can disagree with my hero for something) treating the Columbia tragedy as a symbol comes across as simply sang-froid.

The ability to read the world like one reads a book is what i love about her, and she's always on the mark. Nevertheless, this interpretation does some disservice to the families of the late astronauts. They are searching for answers like the rest of us, and symbolism, i don't think, satisfies them or us.

In sum: great, cogent, fiery interview, it was like the comeback tour of a long absent rock star.

The severity of Paglia's objectivity toward Columbia's very recent explosion read like a litmus test on just how shockingly far-removed her mentality is from the rest of us. Which is of course why she's so great, but its hard to relate to her on a human level on this issue, which is why i'm somewhat freaked out.

Paglia's a sumo of intellect, but seems impervious to the fact that symbolism is only a theory and of little human consolation to the rest of us.

Paglia's astrology-alchemy approach, while it may have merits in its embracement of the mysterious and the Incomprehensible which the age of enlightenment did not allow for, the analysis seems counter-intuitive to us functioning in our science-driven age of technology.

Did any of this make sense?

Paglia's perspective, though i disagree with this facet of it, is indefatigably original and bristling with personality, and it was sorely missed on my part. Its fantastic that we're debating with Paglia ideas again!

Paglia betrays her own convictions in this interview. She shows a failure of nerve. First of all, Talbott is wrong to call the 60s "Dionysian" in a paglian sense. The Greek god Dionysus is much too fierce and "chthonian," as Paglia interprets him, for the decidedly "bacchanalian" 60s. The softer and less serious Roman god Bacchus suffices to describe them.

Paglia reverence for sport and the military supposedly springs from her reverence for Dionysus. The Dionysian is no picnic (Sexual Personae p.5). But here we see Paglia taking NYT's columnist Nicholas Kristoff's line, i.e., fear Dionysus, don't face up to him. The Islamofascists may spoil our travel plans!

The interview suggests that Paglia, like her mentor Harold Bloom, lives only in her bacchanalian head after all. Oriana Fallaci she ain't.