To this day, communities are few in regions scorched by heat or shackled by ice. Civilized man conceals from himself the extent of his subordination to nature. The grandeur of culture, the consolation of religions absorb his attention and win his faith. But let nature shrug, and all is in ruin. Disaster falls upon the good and the bad.
Civilized life requires a state of illusion.
The idea of the ultimate benevolence of nature and God is the most potent of man's survival mechanisms. Without it, culture would revert to fear and despair. The reaction of many feminists to Paglia's 1990 opus, Sexual Personae, and to the media blitz that followed it, proves that the desire to squelch ideas that don't square with your own isn't a purely white, masculine trait. Curious how, even in the Nineties, a woman runs the risk of getting lynched for being uppity. Camille 101 Is A Richer Course Than Critics Admit , Boston Phoenix Literary Supplement, September 25, 1992.