The only reason Salon is worth reading

[wombat_socho]

The Camille Paglia interview.

(Althouse)

I think she is absolutely correct in her critique of the Democrats, but the sad thing is that nobody in that party (except, possibly, the junior senator from New York - if she can get her husband to shut up) really has the clout to break them out of the insular, Ivy League-centric view of America and the world that they're locked into. As I've commented in other posts, I find it very telling that the Democrats are not so much selling a coherent vision of their own, but rather a fear of the Main Street/military/religious conservative Republicans as a bunch of nascent fascists, which speaks volumes about their political and historical illiteracy. I also agree with her on the failure of education in this country to properly teach the humanities and give people a sense of perspective about the world, its art, and its cultures. To the extent that this is being done at all, it's being done by popular writers like Victor Davis Hanson and through the medium of television, which presents anime and Bollywood and all manner of programs on art and history and culture in a way that PBS largely can't seem to be bothered with these days.

Comments

[edwarddain.livejournal.com]

Wow, decent interview of hers again. Nice to see.

Nothing to argue with there, save for equating liberalism (and intellectualism) with a lack of spirituality - but those are minor quibbles in light of the larger discussion.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

I think there's certainly a lot of discussion fodder in that topic, though - and in all fairness, she is referring to the party elites and not folks down in the trenches. I think there's a lot of people who come to political liberalism/socialism from a Christian or Jewish faith background, and others on the left libertarian side of the Democratic party who got there from a pagan background. On the other paw, I think a lot of folks in that party don't know anything about evangelical Christians or Catholics aside from what the media tell them, which in some ways is worse than being completely ignorant.

[edwarddain.livejournal.com]

Agreed on all points.

[materia-indigo.livejournal.com]

Thank goodness for Bollywood and anime! Now, if we could get some decent art instruction back into this country ...

But we've talked about that, haven't we?

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm not sure we have. I did post on the subject last week (http://wombat-socho.livejournal.com/431472.html), though.