Every month, it is woman's fate to face the abyss of time and being, the abyss which is herself.
Camille PagliaRead
In an era ruled by materialism and unstable geopolitics, art must be restored to the center of public education.
Interpretation
Art should be prioritized in education, especially during challenging times.
This quote by Camille Paglia emphasizes the importance of art in the educational system, particularly in an age where material concerns and political instability dominate society. Art, she argues, has a vital role in shaping culture and critical thinking, and thus should be placed at the forefront of public education to foster more comprehensive human understanding and creativity.
In practice
In a speech advocating for increased funding for schools, I might quote Paglia to highlight the need for art in education.
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.
In the real world, very smart people fail and mediocre people rise. Part of what makes people fail or succeed are skills that have nothing to do with IQ. Also, the idea that intelligence can be gauged by an IQ test is erroneous.
A book, like a landscape, is a state of consciousness varying with readers.
At thirteen, I accompanied my mother to the Hawaiian Islands. There, for the first time, I saw the wonder of a steamship and the vastness of the ocean. From that time on, I was eager to acquire the knowledge of the West and to fathom the mysteries of nature.
Perhaps the greatest of all pedagogical fallacies is the notion that a person learns only the particular thing he is studying at the time.
Powerful people cannot afford to educate the people that they oppress, because once you are truly educated, you will not ask for power. You will take it.
Students of reading, writing and common arithmetick . . . Graecian [Greek], Roman, English and American history . . . should be rendered . . . worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens.
A book is an attempt to make through permanent and to contribute to the great conversation conducted by authors of the past. [β¦] The telegraph is suited only to the flashing of messages, each to be quickly replaced by a more up-to-date message. Facts push other facts into and then out of consciousness at speeds that neither permit nor require evaluation. (70)
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