In an era ruled by materialism and unstable geopolitics, art must be restored to the center of public education.
My argument has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature's fascism. Nature herself is a mass murderer, making casual, cruel experiments and condemning 10,000 to die so that one more fit will live and thrive.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Camille Paglia argues that nature's processes prioritize survival of the fittest, but humans have the right to challenge these harsh realities.
In this quote, Camille Paglia presents a provocative view of nature as an indifferent force that ruthlessly controls the survival of species through a brutal process that sacrifices many for the benefit of a few. She calls for humans, endowed with rational thought and moral agency, to challenge the inherent cruelty of nature and assert their right to oppose its unyielding laws, suggesting that our obligation is to rise above nature's oppressive tendencies.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about environmental ethics, this quote could illustrate the moral responsibilities humans have beyond nature's design.
More from Camille Paglia
All quotes →Every month, it is woman's fate to face the abyss of time and being, the abyss which is herself.
Serial or sex murder, like fetishism, is a perversion of male intelligence. It is a criminal abstraction, masculine in its deranged egotism and orderliness. It is the asocial equivalent of philosophy, mathematics, and music. There is no female Mozart because there is no female Jack the Ripper.
The male orientation of classical Athens was inseparable from its genius. Athens became great not despite but because of its misogyny.
We should teach general ethics to both men and women, but sexual relationships themselves must not be policed. Sex, like the city streets, would be risk-free only in totalitarian regimes.
Popular culture is the new Babylon, into which so much art and intellect now flow. It is our imperial sex theater, supreme temple of the western eye. We live in the age of idols. The pagan past, never dead, flames again in our mystic hierarchies of stardom.
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Only when I am by seawater can I truly breathe, to say nothing of my ability to think.
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike,_x000D_ Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
It's beautiful," said Mort softly. "What is it?" THE SUN IS UNDER THE DISC, said Death. "Is it like this every night?" EVERY NIGHT, said Death. NATURE'S LIKE THAT. "Doesn't anyone know?" ME. YOU. THE GODS. GOOD, ISN'T IT? "Gosh!" Death leaned over the saddle and looked down at the kingdoms of the world. I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, he said, BUT I COULD MURDER A CURRY.
I'm hopeful that we'll be able to study the ocean before we destroy it.
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of higher animals, directly follows.