[VIDEO] Navel-Gazing About Gender While the World Burns: Camille Paglia on the Unreal World of America’s Youth

“They have no sense of the great patterns of world history, the rise and fall of civilisations like Babylon and Rome that became very sexually tolerant, and then fell.”

Carolyn Moynihan writes: Camille Paglia, an American college professor and social critic, is one of a kind: a feminist who objects to almost every form of feminism known to womankind; a sexual radical who believes in complete freedom of sexual expression, yet a realist who insists that women have to take full responsibility for the sexual choices they make; and a lesbian who objects to the current censorship of any discussion about the causes of homosexuality.

“This hyper-self-consciousness about ‘Who am I? Where exactly am I on the gender spectrum?’ is mere navel-gazing, while in the Middle East ISIS is beheading people. It is a kind of madness of self-absorption.”

Paglia is, in fact, a notorious contrarian on practically every social issue. And for all her radicalism the 69-year-old often sounds more like an Italian grandmother of yesteryear (she is the child of Italian immigrants) than the political progressive and sexual radical she claims to be. At least, that is the impression left by the very interesting and entertaining interview with Ella Whelan of Spiked (the home of UK contrarianism) about feminism, recorded in the video above.

The video is half an hour long, but here is a taste of Paglia’s views on the issues flourishing in the American hothouse.

Today’s college students

“They have no sense of the great patterns of world history, the rise and fall of civilisations like Babylon and Rome that became very sexually tolerant, and then fell. If you’ve had no exposure to that, you can honestly believe that ‘There is progress all around us and we are moving to an ideal state of culture, where we all hold hands and everyone is accepted for what they are … and the environment will be pure…’ – a magical utopian view that we are marching to perfection. And the sign of this progress is toleration – of the educated class – for homosexuality, or for changing gender, or whatever.

[Check out the books and essays of Camille Puglia at Amazon.com]

“To me it’s a sign of the opposite, it’s symptomatic of a civilisation just before it falls: ‘we’ are very tolerant, not passionate, but there are bands of vandals and destroyers circling around the edge of our civilisation who will bring it down.”

On homosexuality

“There is censorship of discussion about the causes of various gender issues – for at least 25 years, now, in the case of homosexuality itself. In the 1980s there was talk of finding a gay gene, but when that was not found, silence [became the rule]. To even raise the question of how homosexuality is caused is considered homophobic. But I think it is imperative for everyone to ask questions about matters of development of the personality and sexual orientation.

[Read the full story here, at MercatorNet]

“I’m waiting for some brave young gays to protest against the censorship.

On identity politics and transgenderism

“This hyper-self-consciousness about ‘Who am I? Where exactly am I on the gender spectrum?’ is mere navel-gazing, while in the Middle East ISIS is beheading people. It is a kind of madness of self-absorption.”

“I think there are authentic transgender people who had a genetic issue from the start, but they are a tiny, tiny minority of the population, and medical science is still developing to help these people.”

Noting that Hillary Clinton gave transgenders specific mention at the beginning and end of a rally speech last week, the interviewer asks why this issue gets so much attention in the news.

Paglia throws up her hands in exasperation at the daily coverage of “transgender bathrooms” in the US media. She suggests it is “symptomatic of people feeling that world events are out of their control.” Transgender activists can be very aggressive, she adds. As for the others:

“I really pity young people today in this environment because the pressures are enormous. It’s one thing to feel, ‘I’m not quite comfortable in the gender I was assigned at birth,’ but the pressures are to change, change, change, and to telegraph it to the world. People are pushed into making choices about surgical interventions and taking hormones, which is dangerous, and they will have all kinds of medical problems in the long run, I believe…(read more)

Source: MercatorNet

Camille Anna Paglia is a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and a well-known social critic. 

* Also on Spiked: Feminist trouble: Camille Paglia assesses the parlous state of today’s feminism.

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