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lib s
From her Salon Piece.
As a person who hangs with professors regularly (going for a brunch of poached salmon with dill sauce, asparagus and White Wine for Easter - with a bunch of atheists), Paglia is pretty accurate in her description of elite liberalism - including their relative intolerance. They put up with my brand of conservatism, I think, because I'm from Texas and they figure it's genetic.Regarding your observations about the rehabilitation of Sarah Palin and the insufferable snottiness of Cavett and other good liberals: Is it possible that there might be something really ugly at the core of contemporary liberalism? You call yourself a liberal, and you vote liberal, yet you are under constant attack by your liberal compatriots. Why? Because of your open-mindedness and your "real feminism" (as opposed to faux leftist feminism).
In the meantime, the torching of Sarah Palin's church in Alaska (children were inside when the fire with accelerant was set) evokes a collective shrug in the mainstream media and other liberal precincts (if you can find any reference to the event at all). Why the all-too-frequent and downright nasty face of contemporary liberalism?
Timothy Condon
Campton, Fl
Yes, something very ugly has surfaced in contemporary American liberalism, as evidenced by the irrational and sometimes infantile abuse directed toward anyone who strays from a strict party line. Liberalism, like second-wave feminism, seems to have become a new religion for those who profess contempt for religion. It has been reduced to an elitist set of rhetorical formulas, which posit the working class as passive, mindless victims in desperate need of salvation by the state. Individual rights and free expression, which used to be liberal values, are being gradually subsumed to worship of government power.
The problems on the American left were already manifest by the late 1960s, as college-educated liberals began to lose contact with the working class for whom they claimed to speak. (A superb 1990 do entary, "Berkeley in the Sixties," chronicles the arguments and misjudgments about tactics that alienated the national electorate and led to the election of Richard Nixon.) For the past 25 years, liberalism has gradually sunk into a soft, soggy, white upper-middle-class style that I often find preposterous and repellent. The nut cases on the right are on the uneducated fringe, but on the left they sport Ivy League degrees. I'm not kidding -- there are some real fruitcakes out there, and some of them are writing for major magazines. It's a comfortable, urban, messianic liberalism befogged by psychiatric pharmaceuticals. Conservatives these days are more geared to facts than emotions, and as individuals they seem to have a more ethical, perhaps sports-based sense of fair play.
Probably the main reason for my unorthodox view of politics (as in my instant approval of Sarah Palin) is that I had much more childhood contact with working-class life than appears to be the norm among current American columnists. One of my grandfathers was a barber, and the other was a leather worker at the Endicott-Johnson shoe factory in upstate New York. Thanks to the G.I. Bill, my father was able to attend college, the only one in his large family to do so. I was born while he was still in college and mopping floors in the cafeteria. Years later, he became a high-school teacher and then a professor at a Jesuit college, but we never left our immigrant family roots in industrial Endicott. To this day, I have more rapport with campus infrastructure staffers (maintenance, security) than I do with other professors or, for that matter, writers. Don't get me started on the hermetic bourgeois arrogance of American literati!
lib s
Paglia is an idiot. That's why liberals make fun of her. I'd say she's the Thomas Sowell of the left, but Thomas Sowell is actually liked by the Right.
Also, while it's not the thing I hate most, it's gotta be up there... why is the Left and Right both dominated by what happened in the 60's? Vietnam, civil rights, etc etc... I can only hope we get most of these boomers out of office, and soon. Paglia is just another who views all politics from this perspective/prism.
the 60's were a very important part of the growth of America and thank God for that.
I love Paglia. She's a political independent who's not afraid to spit in your eye -- if you're liberal. She's a culture warrior who wants to keep things stirred up, so she mollycoddles hurtin' pup conservatives stung by the vicious barbs of the cultural elite, while patting herself on the back for the cultural authenticity conferred by her *working class* upbringing.
Joe the Plumber she ain't.
I can live with it.
Agreed, but they were 50 years ago. Politicians nowadays who lived through that are obviously affected by it, and that's normal. However, they don't recognize we're in a different era.
How many lefties are proclaiming the greatness of socialism nowadays, for instance?
I'm not. The limbaughites are spouting all this "socialism' talk and so is Joe Pags and other conservatives. Of course we are in a different era but that doesn't mean the ideas and views of the 60's need to forgotten.
Forgotten, no. Moved past, yes. Iraq gets compared to Vietnam, people with liberal views are considered 'hippies' and 'socialists', legalization of marijuana still gets (mostly) demonized... things of that nature.
If it makes you feel better, that 60's gloss is all over the music genre too. Who are almost always considered the best bands/singers of all time? Beatles, Rolling Stones, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, etc etc. Don't get me wrong, they all were influential, and all pretty amazing, but the viewpoint of most music writers is from that era as well.
Individual rights and free expression, which used to be liberal values, are being gradually subsumed to worship of government power.
I agree. The 60's is an era that was very historical in what occured politically and socially. I think today's youth are going to be very influential in the years to come. The changing of the guard politically will happen soon as the older members retire or are voted out.
Individual rights and free expression, which used to be liberal values, are being gradually subsumed to worship of government power.
Yeah, liberals are oh-so lockstep, uniform and disciplined - not like those carefree, loose, big-tent conservatives.Yes, something very ugly has surfaced in contemporary American liberalism, as evidenced by the irrational and sometimes infantile abuse directed toward anyone who strays from a strict party line.
...and are all liberals equivalent to a couple of cloistered baby-boomer professors now? Does this mean all conservatives are equivalent to bloviating reactionaries on talk radio?
According to many on Spurstalk, apparently so.
Both the left and right have gotten away from the ideals they once were respected for. The left-right paradigm traps potentially intelligent political minds in a dead-end game; which is what the puppet masters want.
A recent example of this can be viewed in Barney Frank's recent interaction with the Harvard Law Student.
Last edited by FaithInOne; 04-08-2009 at 04:05 PM.
Yeah, liberals are oh-so lockstep, uniform and disciplined - not like those carefree, loose, big-tent conservatives.
...and are all liberals equivalent to a couple of cloistered baby-boomer professors now? Does this mean all conservatives are equivalent to bloviating reactionaries on talk radio?
I think he was referring to the left's blogosphere. I'd say that is a pretty accurate characterization of places like democraticundergound.com.
Both Left- and Right- blogistans have a preponderance of orclike figures. Fear and misinformation are their scions; fake triumph and petty grievance is the approved style.
Yeah I agree. Pagalia is cool I love her celebration of sexuality,her iconaclastic mind, and the way she eviscerates the limp ed sophists of the "radical chic".
who are the "radical chic"?
Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, by Tom Wolfe
jRadical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers was a 1970 book by Tom Wolfe. The book, Wolfe's fourth, is composed of two articles by Wolfe, "These Radical Chic Evenings," first published in June of 1970 in New York Magazine, about a gathering Leonard Bernstein held for the Black Panther Party and "Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers," about the response of many minorities to San Francisco's poverty programs. Both essays looked at the conflict between black rage and white guilt.[1]
Good thing that the conservatives never did anything like this when they were in power.Individual rights and free expression, which used to be liberal values, are being gradually subsumed to worship of government power.
1970.... like I said, I'm tired of these old ass people viewing everything through the lens of 30 to 40 years agoRadical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, by Tom Wolfe
j
1970.... like I said, I'm tired of these old ass people viewing everything through the lens of 30 to 40 years ago
Obama's mother is part of the radical chic, his view have been shaped by that same padagrim of reality
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