In an era ruled by materialism and unstable geopolitics, art must be restored to the center of public education.
Camille PagliaRead
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.
Interpretation
Teaching ethics is important, but regulating sexual relationships can lead to oppression.
In this quote, Camille Paglia argues that while it is essential to educate individuals about ethics, trying to control sexual relationships goes against the spirit of freedom. She compares the regulation of sex to enforcing safety in a totalitarian state, suggesting that true freedom allows for risk and choice in personal relationships.
In practice
In a discussion on gender studies, this quote could highlight the importance of personal freedom in sexual expression.
In an era ruled by materialism and unstable geopolitics, art must be restored to the center of public 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.
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 man who has decided upon self-destruction is far removed from mundane affairs, and to sit down and write his will would be, at that moment, an act just as absurd as winding up oneβs watch, since together with the man, the whole world is destroyed; the last letter is instantly reduced to dust and, with it, all the postmen; and like smoke, vanishes the estate bequeathed to a nonexistent progeny.
To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world.
Take comfort, and recollect however little you and I may know, God knows; He knows Himself and you and me and all things; and His mercy is over all His works.
Something which is against natural laws seems to me rather out of the question because it would be a depressive idea about God. It would make God smaller than he must be assumed. When he stated that these laws hold, then they hold, and he wouldn't make exceptions. This is too human an idea. Humans do such things, but not God.
The Lord called me by the way of simplicity and humility, and this way He hath shown me in truth for me and those who will believe and imitate me. And therefore I would that ye name not to me any rule, neither of St. Augustine, nor St. Benedict, nor of Bernard, nor any way or form of living, but that which was mercifully shown and given me by the Lord.
Our great modern Republic. May those who seek the blessings of its institutions and the protection of its flag remember the obligations they impose.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.