Jordan Peterson interviews the one and only Camille Paglia.
Camille says that from 1968-72 there were no radical Leftists in the graduate schools in America. Where did they go? Either to communes or taking acid and destroying their brains!
Camille is a hoot! She is a Leftist, but not the kind of Leftist who dominates our culture today. "They are frauds," she says. "Authentic Leftism is populism," she says. She doesn't like the "fancy contorted jargon of the pseudo-Leftists of academe!" "Cancerous, fascist bureaucrats!" "They have abandoned any kind of education in history and culture!"
Jordan agrees and says postmodernists don't believe in competence, they don't believe in authority, in an objective world (because everything is language-mediated). It is all about power and dominance! NeoMarxism is closely related to the postmodernism and also identity politics.
Camille says these snide elitists show their solidarity with the working class that they have nothing to do with! "They know nothing before the present!"
Both agree that there is tremendous bias against boys and men in academia. Camille believes our public schools are permeated with anti-male propaganda imprisoning young men who have a lot of physical energy! (My boys will agree with that)! "It's time men stood up and demanded to be respected as men again! Jordan adds, "It seems to me that it is sane women who have to stand up against their crazy sisters!" If the crazy women were men, we men would know how to deal with them, physical confrontation being a last resort. But that last resort is not available to a man dealing with a crazy woman!
Camille remembers the agrarian lifestyle of her grandparents, who emigrated to America from Italy. The older women had the most power. There was little interaction between the sexes. Each had power and status in its own realm. Women interacted joyfully with other women. Cooking with each other, doing the laundry outside together. Men gathered around the car with the hood up, trying to figure out why the car wasn't working, studying something technical and mechanical. Most of human history was agrarian. All of these anti-male problems of today are the direct consequence of women's emancipation and freedom thanks to capitalism! Upper-middle-class professional women are unhappy. They want to blame it on men. They demand that men change and become more like women. No! Men need to become secure with their manhood! Jordan agrees, "There is nothing more dangerous than a weak man!"
Jordan says "We have no idea how to integrate male and female dominant hierarchies. Camille agrees. Jordan says men have a way of bringing a conflict to a head and resolving it. But men don't have that same ability to resolve a conflict with a woman. Mostly what men are supposed to do is avoid it! Camille agrees and gives the example of how boys resolve things with each other but girls get their feelings hurt.
Camille believes the answer lies in people understanding history: communication patterns were built up over centuries. The stone age, the romantic period, the agrarian period. War is the reality principle. It is this invisible army of men who are maintaining everything around us! Women don't notice, or regard it as repression! Wait until jihadists figure out how to paralyze the power grid! The entire culture will be chaotic! Only men will bring civilization back again!
Camille talks about being gay and noticing that among her gay friends there seems to be a common theme of "blurred borderlines between a son and his mother," but it would be politically incorrect to ask about any genesis of homosexuality today because that would be "homophobic." The mother made the son her companion in some way. The father was much less engaged.
Camille says she is transgender. I didn't know that. She says she "latched onto the English language to gain my identity and power as a person! For any government to try to tell me what English words I must use or not use is obscene and evil!"
Camille believes that what is known today as feminism is actually a betrayal of authentic feminism!
She has noticed that her college students are so used to communicating via iPhone, that they are losing body language and facial expressions. Are they missing inflections in the other person's facial expressions? There is an inability to read other people's intentions. The students are becoming much more flat affect.
Is western culture in rapid decline?
Camille believes the public school system has gone to Hell. It is all about indoctrination, feel good political correctness, no bullying. She talks about the slow degradation of public school education to the point now that the students have no sense of world geography or world history, wars, and the barbaric reality of human history. Political correctness has got to stop! Jordan agrees and stresses the importance of individual responsibility, not seeing oneself as a member of a victimized group. Life is suffering. Take responsibility to fix your situation and don't spend time resenting and blaming!
Marxism is blind and lazy. It is very narrow. It even ignores nature! Camille wants an educated citizenry.
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