From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: She's baaaaack.....Camille Paglia
Date: 29 Sep 92 18:28:28 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <jyc.717736743@Leland>, jyc@leo.Stanford.EDU (Jon Corelis) writes:
> adolphso@mizar.usc.edu (adolphson) writes:
> 
> >| a hatchet job which was not only
> >| mean-spirited but hypocritical, since the authors of the books in
> >| question (one of whom had died of AIDS shortly before Paglia's article
> >| was written and was thus beyond responding to her slurs) both had
> >| career-long records of vigorous political activism in the cause of
> >| antidiscrimination, whereas for all her pseudopopulist bluster Paglia's
> >| own real-world political credentials are, to the best of my knowledge,
> >| null.
> 
> >I don't know how to read that to mean anything other than this: Paglia's
> >review of two books written by classicists about sexuality ancient Greece
> >was mean-spirited and hypocritical because Winkler and Halperin were
> >involved in political activism in the cause of antidiscrimination whereas
> >Paglia has no such political record. 
> 
>    Then you don't know how to read.  If you ask people who do, they'll
> explain to you that the criticisms being made are (1) that Paglia's
> review of these works was motivated by a mean-spirited personal agenda
> rather than by an understanding of the scholarly issues involved, and

This is a valid criticism to make.  But if the "political activism
in the cause of antidiscrimination" reflects a deep emotional 
committment to finding the "correct" answers in examining sexuality
in ancient Greece, what may be a legitimate criticism of a lack of
scholarly objectivity, will doubtless be interpreted as "mean-spirited
personal agenda."  I take it that Winkler and Halperin, who were
political activists, had no "personal agenda" in their scholarly work?
Or is the problem that they did have such a "personal agenda," and
Paglia skewered them for failing to maintain scholarly objectivity?

> (2) that it was additionally hypocritical, because she was presenting
> herself as a great antiestablishment radical in contradisction to the
> upper-middle-class establishment types Winkler and Halperin, whereas the
> real-world facts are that the people she was criticizing had
> distinguished histories of being engaged in risky political activities
> in support of their principles, whereas so far as I've been able to
> determine Paglia's involvement in anything that could be called politics
> of any sort has been doodlysquat.  

I don't know what the great controversy was about, but you are not
persuading me that Mr. Adolphson misinterpreted you -- quite the
opposite.  We have far too many "academics" out there, especially in
the last few years, that have "personal agendas" that have utterly
clouded their ability to engage in the sort of balance and objectivity
that has traditionally been part of the academic life.  

I have not a clue how most of my history professors vote.  They manage
to keep their own political beliefs sufficiently hidden, in spite of
the relevance of the topics covered, that I can't tell if they are
conservatives, radicals, liberals, libertarians, etc.  On the other
hand, in the "sloppy sciences" (philosophy, English), it's real
easy.  Pretenses of objectivity and balance at Sonoma State seem to
have been utterly dropped by professors in some departments.  Let
me give you one recent example.

This semester, I'm taking a class called "Media Ethics," taught 
in the Philosophy Dept.  As part of discussions, the great "Murphy
Brown" flap came up.  The professor insisted that it was utterly
clear that the Bush Administration had Quayle make the speech about
Murphy Brown just to set up the "family values" issue for the
convention, so as to distract attention from the economy.  Now,
it's certainly a possibility.  It would be good politics to do so.
But it's hardly the only explanation.  But there was no attempt at
even seriously considering any possibility but the most cynical
and negative interpretation of this whole incident -- and it was
made clear that there wasn't even any interest in considering
alternative explanations, BECAUSE of the professor's antipathy
to the Bush Administration.

Perhaps one reason I felt no need to finish reading Roger Kimball's
_Tenured Radicals_ is that there wasn't anything terribly surprising
to me in it.

-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
Bush: War on Drugs, tax cut->bigger deficit.  Clinton: War on Drugs, spending
increase->bigger deficit.  What a great choice.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books