Camille Paglia: a promoter of pedophilia?

[Voyageur]

Really, as far as issues of morality are concerned, prominent figures such as her should be very clear in their stance and don't allow room for any ambiguity.

The thing is though, that she has being very clear of her stance and has defended it for decades. There has been no ambiguity in what she has said and her defence of what she has written. Her moral tastebuds appears to be very limited.

Agree concerning complexities, yet not being well read on Paglia, and with her Allen Ginsberg pedophilia leanings - her defense default seems to reach back to what she knows of Greek stories (sometimes shown on art) in tandem, or as a learned offshoot with her mentor Ginsberg. Oh, the Greeks did this all the time and so...it's all good, seems to be the answer, so move along. Seems to me there is a hell of a lot left out of this default; rather conveniently. For instance, what we know of these Greek stories (at a particular time, with particular people and perhaps in certain economic and geographical place(s)), provides a limited view. The stories do not tell of regular Greek people at these times who may very well (i think you could count on it, osit) have abhorred the actions of these people depicted in history with a fetish for children, perhaps predatorial to the likes of their very own children. They do not tell of the families who knew this was all very wrong. They do not say that if people complained against these actions they were hassled or even killed, where they? How deep was this possible resentment i don't know, yet people are not that different when it comes to their families and their children now or then, and they would not have been pleased - pitchforks have come out for lesser reasons. However, this does not seem to matter when one can grasp a particular time period depicted in certain communication styles and then hold them up as the shining examples to bolster their cause.

History is rather good at leaving out so many details (people here well know); not telling it as it was, leaving out the way common people thought (which is probably not so different now - in shared societal concerns) and of course leaving out these narratives in writing or in depicted history. So, holding up Greek stories of these historical 'loving' actions that backstop pedophiles as being normal, as a default, is simply poor thinking at minimum and perverse at maximum, IMO.

 

[Hindsight Man]

"
We are only for something by being against
something else. People who believe they are having pleasant, casual,
uncomplex sexual encounters, whether with friend, spouse, or stranger,
are blocking from consciousness the tangle of psycho dynamics at work,
just as they block the hostile clashings of their dream life. Family
romance operates at all times. The femme fatale is one of the refine¬
ments of female narcissism, of the ambivalent self-directedness that is
completed by the birth of a child or by the conversion of spouse or lover
into child. Mothers can be fatal to their sons. It is against the mother that men
have erected their towering edifice of politics and sky-cult. She is Me¬
dusa, in whom Freud sees the castrating and castrated female pubes.
But Medusa’s snaky hair is also the writhing vegetable growth of nature. "

God what a pretentious word salad.She projects her own corrupted ideas onto the rest of humanity and uses long words to hide that fact. I've actually noticed a lot of this once I started paying attention.Sentences that seem to make sense until you read them slowly and realize that nothing of value was said.Modern literature/psych graduates are particularly guilty of this and you can find endless hours of just such pretentious drivel on any just about any topic on youtube.I can do better than that,watch this :

''The pre-natal post systemic derangement with which we confound ourselves,
brings deeper systemic learning which seeks to teach the unconscious character of the western man
and bring out the subconcious paradox of building towers even as we dig tunnels.
Thinking unconscious thoughts bring us closer to utopic confoundment,like the biblical
shattering of tongues to unite us all under the umbrella of futuristic anachronisms."

There,I'm an academic now.Where's my damn PHD.

 

[DianaRose94]

Well, even giving her the benefit of the doubt regarding deliberate abuse today (but like Aeneas pointed out, although possible, she wasn't so young and ignorant when she was promoting paedophilia!), I still find her statement to be quite messed up. So, she is all for "mom and dad" roles, yet, she is a parent, but not a mother? Obviously she is not a father, so...? Doesn't that have a lot of potential for messing up with the child's mind? "Hi, I have a mom and a parent at home. Both of them are women." I'm sorry, but actions have to match words. If you are all for traditional roles, then why are you doing the opposite and twisting it to make it sound less bad? That is still pathological, IMO.

I am not a mother. This Heather has Two Mommies stuff is terrible. The thing about the "two moms" or the "two dads" is a terrible thing to impose on a child. Parents should be in two roles. Lucien has one mother and that is Alison. I am his parent, and I have adopted him legally. I've enjoyed it greatly not least because I see what it's like to be immersed in the world of moms. I've had a chance to observe them ... like an anthropologist. They get on fabulously with each other. And I can say every single statement I made about gender in Sexual Personae - about gender differences, child rearing and so on - has proved true.

I think this part is very telling about her personality. Imagine a man or even a woman saying that about their kid and partner. That wouldn't be considered normal by any stretch of the mind. I think she's no parent at all for that kid. He's probably more like a pet to her. Something to amuse and distract her, but not to truly connect with.

 

[Alana]

From what I read in this thread about Paglia, her own quotes, I am having a hard time giving her the benefit of the doubt. It's one thing to discover that Gurdjieff or Jung for example, were not the persons they presented themselves to be and had promoted their "teachings" for egocentric reasons or misinformed because of ignorance, etc. Some of what they said still makes sense and can still be useful for a person pursuing personal development. And the research of Paglia on the degeneration of societies coinciding with the end of civilizations has some merit, it was something we observed independently on our own too (Human/Cosmic connection). But by supporting and promoting the legalization of pederastia (=child lover, I don't even like that term but it's preferable to the term pedophilia, philos = friend in Greek!) she has crossed the line far past acceptable... It's revolting and disgusting, not only for me personally but for a lot of people.

Her shtcick about snuff films (even though she says no woman should be killed?!) what's that about? Aren't snuff films called that because they include the murder of a person? A woman, a child, a man... Isn't that what makes them different from hard-core pornography or whatever that is called? And who would volunteer to participate in such a thing (murder involved or not) by their own decision? A child? A woman? A man? Or would violence, manipulation, coercion, and force be required? What exactly is she supporting?

I can't help but wonder whether, perhaps in some conscious/unconscious ways, Paglia has this nihilistic dream of our civilization coming to an end, and she is doing her part on bringing it about by helping break down the fabric of society with her "shock and awe" attacks on ethics, conscience, and morality.

 

[Aeneas]

We might allow some leeway, for now, that Paglia has not been herself 'wallowing' in the sick stuff she has defended in the past, and that it's her ideological stance ("I'm a libertarian on these matters") that blinded her to the dangers and contradictions of her provocative views. On her Wiki page it says she legally adopted, as co-parent, the child of her (now former) female partner. No matter how destructive that relationship is likely to have been, based on appearances to us outsiders, there's no evidence for it having been deliberately abusive or neglectful. People, even those we might earmark at a distance as being 'deviant', are still complicated.

One can question why we should allow some leeway even if she has not herself to our direct knowledge wallowed in this sick stuff. Comparisons are many. Let us take dear old John Bolton, who is from the year 1948(November) and thus a good year younger than Paglia. Let us imagine that he doesn't say much in the next 20 years and dies a peaceful death. Will we forget his many years advocating for wars and mayhem everywhere, just because he himself didn't directly take part as a warrior but only advocated it?

Are we to give all the intellectuals at the universities a carte blanche to destroy the minds of the generations to come and only condemn those who actually act on what the intellectuals advocated? Those intellectuals who are more aligned with the materialist, nihilist, destructive forces, in other words proponents of the STS path have caused untold suffering.

A big part of being here for those of us in the work is to learn to see the unseen and via knowledge and awareness navigate the traps and mazes, snakes and ladders if you will, so that we may strengthen our antenna in an STO direction. At the very least to not add more chaos and entropy to the living system for the time that we are here.

Paglia's strong advocacy of pornography to all ages plays into creating destructive pathways in the brain. There was an article some years ago about how pornography short circuits the brain and inhibits learning:

Both having sex and watching porn cause dopamine to be released in the part of the brain responsible for emotions and learning

. In fact, it’s the one neurotransmitter that becomes the most active. “The main change is the flood of dopamine. Watching pornography produces a dopaminergic response,” Joe Schrank, an addiction specialist, and founder of TheFix.com and Loft 107, a sober living facility in Brooklyn, N.Y., told Medical Daily in an email.

It is this neurotransmitter that gives you the desire for self-pleasure, as its levels surge in response to anticipation and expectation. But the brain begins to change as we repeatedly tap into this particular pathway by viewing porn — it becomes desensitized to the effects of dopamine. These effects were shown in a 2014 study published in JAMA Psychiatry, which produced the first-ever brain scans of porn watchers. The German researchers found that the level of changes in the brain correlated with the amount of porn a person watched — the more they watched, the lower the activity was in their brain’s reward centers after sexual images were flashed on a screen.

And

This causes the brain to need more dopamine each subsequent time in order to feel the same effects. As a result, it can give a person a reason to watch more porn. Sometimes, however, the brain gets “worn out” and halts the production of dopamine, which leaves the viewer wanting more satisfaction with the inability to reach it, according to Gary Wilson, a physiology teacher, who discussed the topic during a TEDx talk. This can provoke the viewer to seek out more intense porn to get the same “high.”

“Brains respond to chemical change. When the dopamine is released and there is a sense of pleasure, the primitive brain sends the message to repeat the behavior for the desired feeling,” Schrank said.

He believes this is why addictions become so difficult to break. People tend to assume this is purely a behavioral issue; however, different brains respond to different stimuli, whether it’s shopping or pornography. Within the mind of an addict, there is always a constant need to feel that strong stimulation.

So pornography displayed to infants, makes them become addicts desiring self-pleasure, increase there level of anticipation and expectation, desensitizes them so they become like heroin addicts who need stronger and stronger dosis with less and less of an effect. All of the above encourages and STS pathway. Does it change the protein antennaes and thus stunts the potential for spiritual development, making it even harder to overcome the little i's and become a single unified I? To use Gurjieffs analogy about the coach, the horses, the coachman and then passenger, what chance would the coachman have in ever getting a hold on his horses if the reins are cut off and the horses are frightened and whipped into a frenzy?
One can also see how this porn addiction that started in the late 60ies could well be the reason why we see all these bizarre fetishes, sadomasochism and body mutilating practices. But perhaps I am just being prudish

As Frankl and JP says then with freedom comes responsibility and the same goes to my mind also for occupying the role of teacher/educator/influencer. Being able to influence thousands of young minds at universities and the shape and form of society is a very responsible job and it is only right to hold the light to how responsible they performed their job as teacher/influencer/national security advisor/etc., even after their retirement not least because we and the next generations have to live with the consequences thereof.

Perhaps the unconscious aversion got triggered, which might well be there for a reason, so as to protect those who are most vulnerable in society such as women and children.

 

[Adaryn]

In 2018, Paglia released this book: Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism

From a (5 stars) review on Amazon:

"Camille Paglia is an enigmatic figure in American letters, a brilliant intellect and eloquent writer who refuses to be bound by dogmas and conventions. She is always a pleasure to read.

As she approaches 70 years of age, she can look back on a lifetime of involvement in the intellectual movements of her time. She came of age as the sexual revolution was cresting. She celebrates the freedom of rock music of the 1960s, breaking out of what she considers to have been confining stereotypes of the 50s. It is the transition from Doris Day and Debbie Reynolds to Janis Joplin and the Beatles.

The early influences in her life were first wave feminists, the women who fought that all women might enjoy the fundamental rights to property ownership, employment, voting and elective office. Her heroines from this era include Katherine Hepburn and Emelia Ehrhardt, about whom she wrote a precocious 77 page paper as a schoolgirl.

She credits Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex) as the leading edge of second wave feminism, brought to the United States by Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique. Whereas first-generation feminists had not been anti-male, and in fact were grateful to men for granting the progress that they achieved, the second generation perceived men as enemies and obstacles. These were the feminists to deny biology, asserting that gender was a social construct that had been forced on women by men seeking to preserve a patriarchy. The transition was slow. Some feminists such as herself and Germaine Greer were quite content with a robust sexuality. [Note: what exactly does this feminine version of Rollo Tomassi mean by "robust sexuality"? Well, it's all outlined in her book Sexual Personae.]

This book is a collection of what Paglia considers to be her most significant contributions, from the early 1990s through the present day. As such it is somewhat eclectic – not all of a piece."

I think we can scratch the "let's give her some leeway for now" or "she might have a different stance today"…

 

[luc]

Are we to give all the intellectuals at the universities a carte blanche to destroy the minds of the generations to come and only condemn those who actually act on what the intellectuals advocated? Those intellectuals who are more aligned with the materialist, nihilist, destructive forces, in other words proponents of the STS path have caused untold suffering.

No, certainly not. We can and should give people room for redemption though. There have been cases of people who advocated for a liberal attitude towards pedophilia in their writing when they were younger, especially in the 60ies/70ies. This is abhorrent, no doubt. But in many such cases, when confronted later with this, they apologized thoroughly and "repented". Whether they were serious and honest in their apology, I guess only God can judge. But it's still something. However, this clearly doesn't apply to Paglia. Thank you everyone for finding those quotes and putting the picture together. What a sick mind.

 

[Aeneas]

Two articles relating to feminism and pedophilia by respectively Corey and Pierre are worth rereading and mentions some of Paglia's idols such as Simone de Beauvoir, Germaine Greer and Sartre.

The Feminist Seduction of Western Society

On January 16th the UK's Channel 4 News uploaded its now-infamous interview between psychologist Jordan Peterson and newscaster Cathy Newman, treating viewers to a morbid yet fascinating display of feminist ideology careening face-first into the...

www.sott.net

Greer didn't seem to consider that levels stabilized at low levels because women made the choices they wanted to make. However, it must be noted that Greer's litmus test for 'emancipation' was, in her own words, the drinking of one's own menstrual blood. As she wrote in The Female Eunuch, "Any woman who believes she's emancipated and hasn't tasted her own menstrual blood has a long way to go, baby." 9 Emancipation, for her, was emancipation from sanity.

Spurred on by this pathology, many Feminist Manifestos were published, each aimed at putting the fire under the collective female behind and turning them into revolutionaries. Simone de Beauvoir published her 900-page tome The Second Sex in 1953. Ten years later, Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique in 1963, with both Germaine Greer and Shulamith Firestone publishing their own tomes in 1970. Common to them all were the tones of oppression and revolution, with hatred for both men and women dripping from every word.

Each writer accepted as fundamental that women were in some way different from men - and their understanding of said differences filled volumes, ranging from the way they dressed, their attitudes, their roles in society, etc. It was from this keen understanding that the Feminist Matriarchs understood what their revolution needed to accomplish, as well as their tactics for getting it done. Men's love for women would be their weapon. The destruction of the family, and emasculating men, would be their goal.

Is France Attempting to Normalize Pedophilia?

Three and half years ago, I wrote an article titled 'Mummy, why is Daddy wearing a dress? Daddy, why does Mummy have a mustache?' where I suggested that one of the objectives of the LGBT/feminist movement was not really freedom or equality but...

www.sott.net

A couple of excerpts:

France is the cradle of the Enlightenment and Revolution. Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot or Montesquieu sowed the ideological seeds of nihilism.

The revolutionaries implemented this ideology, killed the clergy and burnt the churches. God was sacrificed on the altar of materialism and individualism. Once god was removed, not much was left to justify the existence of moral good and bad.

The next noticeable step in the process of decadence was postmodernism. It emerged from France with Sartres and Beauvoir in the 1940s and gave birth to the infamous 'French theory' championed by brain-damaged 'philosophers' like Derida, Foucault and Deleuze.

The postmodernists embrace 'radical relativism' where truth and good no longer exists. It's all about power and oppression. Those ideas were embodied by the May 1968 sexual revolution. Authority, fathers, teachers were sacrificed on the altar of freedom and equality.

French theory spread to US campuses during the 1970s. It repackaged Marxism in identity politics by replacing work with sexuality, proletarian with women and capitalists with men. These are the ideological roots of LGBT and modern feminist activism

, which, as we found, lies behind this attempt to drop the age of consent.

Each one of the five preeminent 20th century French 'thinkers' mentioned above took official positions defending pedophilia.

In 1971, they co-signed a manifesto protesting the sentence given to three men who abused children as young as 13 years old.

Six years after their first manifesto, in 1977, they co-signed a second manifesto, which asked French authorities to drop the age of consent to 13 years old. Et voilà, theory becomes practice.

Vile life hating idols and yet they have strongly influenced todays Western society. Numerous other idols have already been mentioned and they seem to fit the same category of strong STS alignment.

 

[Chu]

Whether they were serious and honest in their apology, I guess only God can judge. But it's still something. However, this clearly doesn't apply to Paglia.

Indeed. If she was a cook or had a Youtube channel about sewing, an "apology/retraction" wouldn't matter as much, I guess. For for someone to be an "authority" of any kind in the topics she talks about, and NOT make it clear that the stuff she wrote or believed in the past is not true today... That leaves more than one reason to believe that she still views those topics as she did back then. Not to mention that in that book blurb it is clear that she is okay with mentioning some of her "idols", who were all but saints, to put it mildly.

 

[Scottie]

Possible. Possible that, were she not associated somewhow with Peterson in people's minds, due to her defence of him and the interview he did with her, she'd be shred to pieces right here (metaphorically ), without any "yes but", or "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".

Paglia is obviously a burnt cookie. I never really liked her that much (I wish she had a "1/2 speed" button), although there were a few shorter vids of some of her talks that were quite good on their own. Maybe she was just trying to ride others' coat tails, maybe it was part of some deceptive power play, maybe this, maybe that... Who knows. Burnt cookie, case closed.

I was simply attempting to make a more general point related to events both on and off the forum.

In any case, you mentioned Tomassi, which reminded me...

About 1.5 months ago, I got my first H2O session. When thinking about the session results and certain related time periods, suddenly I remembered this post:

@Balance (and others): Do you know this book? No More Mr Nice Guy: A Proven Plan for Getting What You Want in Love, Sex, and Life
It came up as a book suggestion while I was reading reviews of Tomassi's books on Amazon. The reviews seem overwhelmingly positive so if you haven't already, you might be interested in taking a look at it.

I had purchased the book long ago, but never read it. It didn't make much sense, but I felt I should read it after the H2O session. So, I did.

Well, thanks for recommending it!

It turns out that that book is basically Tomassi Light. The author is a professional marriage counselor, been married 3 times (!!!), after second divorce he was a "big loser" with the ladies, so he figured out a wonderful program of how to sleep with lots of women (which he claims he did). Now he's married, supposedly happily. Or maybe he's divorced again - who knows? Hopefully he'll just counsel himself - again.

Anyway, that's all beside the point. The point is that there was 1 sentence in that book that literally blew my mind. I won't go into details due to the private nature, but let's just say that it was related to the H2O session, my past, and the result was so shocking that I ended up sitting in bed reading, my jaw on the floor, staring at myself in the mirror (with jaw on floor) for like 5 minutes straight as the realizations washed over me.

Yeah, that's sounds pretty dramatic, but that's how it was.

Now, having read that book long after Tomassi, I can say with high certainty that I have not slept with anyone (much less 100 people a day), and I'm even less inclined than ever to be in a relationship than I ever have been before... Not because "women are evil" or something, but because I think I understand myself and others better.

So... Imagine if I had decided NOT to read Glover's book because he's just another one of those crazy pathologicals (he is).

Aversion may be triggered, and that can either interface with lower or higher emotions. If this (or one's aversion to other people's aversion) triggers the lower emotions, then all is lost.

We can see the state of the world today. We also have the idea that it's going to get worse - probably much worse.

So, imagine what happens if our aversion triggers "lesser" emotional reactions, over and over, as more and more of our "heroes" fall - both private and public. Without proper self-control, we will quickly become overwhelmed. Burned out.

IOW, by all means, call a spade a spade. But be darn sure that you know where the energy is coming from that's driving that process. We very often think that it's some "higher" emotion, when in fact it's the lower ones.

Anyway, just a general warning to all based on (widespread and numerous) recent events and some things I've been thinking about lately. Our collective time and energy are precious, so it's probably a good idea to use them as wisely as possible. I suppose it prolly would have fit better in the Gay Germ thread, but whatever!

And if things really go nuts, be advised that spontaneous human combustion is against the forum rules.

 

[Ant22]

I really don't think that her support for Peterson puts her past views in a different light, especially that they may still be her views, for all we know. I do buy into the "people are complex argument" and for this very reason I don't believe that friends of my friends are by default my friends too.

I was comfortable to give a decent amount of leeway to Peterson when he expressed his uninformed views on such issues as the "evil Middle Eastern regimes". He clearly didn't spend as much time and effort investigating geo-politics as he did investigating psychology. But I'm really struggling to apply the same leniency to someone who expressed rather enthusiastic support for pedophila and never denounced those views.

To me, there is a huge difference between opinions resulting from ignorance and opinions demonstrating a lack of normal human instinct. Many of us here used to believe the official propaganda about many topics, yet we changed our views when we learned more. But none of us here ever thought pedophilia or other sexual degeneracy was OK until we learned more about the issue. We just knew it's sick. She didn't.

So... Imagine if I had decided NOT to read Glover's book because he's just another one of those crazy pathologicals (he is).

Aversion may be triggered, and that can either interface with lower or higher emotions. If this (or one's aversion to other people's aversion) triggers the lower emotions, then all is lost.

I agree that there is risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater Scottie, but I don't think you are a perfect representation of an average person out there. I'd risk an assumption that most members of the public aren't as good as you at separating the wheat from the chaff. The "truth between the lies" sandwich has so far worked very well as a means of leading the masses astray and in the age of Minor Attracted Persons I'm really reluctant to give Paglia too much benefit of the doubt.

 

[Scottie]

I agree that there is risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater Scottie, but I don't think you are a perfect representation of an average person out there. I'd risk an assumption that most members of the public aren't as good as you at separating the wheat from the chaff. The "truth between the lies" sandwich has so far worked very well as a means of leading the masses astray and in the age of Minor Attracted Persons I'm really reluctant to give Paglia too much benefit of the doubt.

I dunno, that might be true... But if you never start walkin', you ain't never gonna get there!

 

[genero81]

What is it about the mentality among some (many?) high profile and nominally high intelligence Jews that they are driven to want to break down social and cultural norms and revolutionize society, apparently to create a situation where everything is allowed?

The Zionist agenda/ strategy as outlined in 'From Yahweh to Zion'?

 

[Beau]

This whole normalization of pedophilia seems to be creeping into higher education. The people that allow this nonsense to enter into a college curriculum should have their heads checked

https://twitter.com/x/status/1172299540201799680

 

[mkrnhr]

So, imagine what happens if our aversion triggers "lesser" emotional reactions, over and over, as more and more of our "heroes" fall - both private and public. Without proper self-control, we will quickly become overwhelmed. Burned out.

Maybe the way out is not to have incarnated heroes, and let heroism be archetypal and ideal. If a person X is right about subject A, good. If she's wrong about subject B, not good. No emotional identification. The world as we know it is going down in flames, and there's nothing to be done about it. Everytime we think the bottom has been attained, worse things appear. There is a certain inertia to history, and when it is heading toward destruction, it will eventually get there, except for the individual "Noahs" who see it coming, and do what it takes not to be contaminated with the collective folly that such a destructive dynamic entails. OSIT.