We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata quote of the day

It is capitalist America that produced the modern independent woman. Never in history have women had more freedom of choice in regard to dress, behaviour, career, and sexual orientation

– Camille Paglia

9 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • The very quotable Paglia is also the author of the most arrogant put-down this side of Winston Churchill…

    “The only thing that will be remembered about my enemies after they’re dead is the nasty things I’ve said about them”

    Phew.

  • … and then there is…

    “Leaving sex to the feminists is like letting your dog vacation at the taxidermist”

    She is priceless.

  • Midwesterner

    Many years back I had the good fortune to be slow on the remote control when a program announced a guest, “feminist Camille Paglia“. I have been a fan ever since. What an alive person. Dangerous, even.

  • Paglia cuts thru thru the bafflegab and BS… She succinctly states the obvious so often that she is a national treasure. Being a lesbian keeps her from being attacked from the left. Being correct and speaking the truth silences the right…

    Bravo… smart has value no matter it’s preferences.-!!!

  • Suddenly, I have an urge to read her books.

  • Suddenly, I have an urge to read her books

    Hmmm… Sexual Personae was the hardest book I have ever ploughed through, bar none. It makes Open Society and Its Enemies seem like Enid Blighton in that is so bloody dense you will find yourself re-reading whole chapters just to make sure you took it all in. I have a formidable vocabulary and yet I was constantly scrambling for the dictionary to understand some of the obscure terms she uses. Paglia is not for the faint hearted!

    I think some of her ideas are completely gonzo but when she is right, oh is she right.

  • Kim du Toit

    “Never in history have women had more freedom of choice in regard to dress, behaviour, career, and sexual orientation”

    Yeah, and that’s worked out so well, with liberal canker blossoms like Hillary Clinton dominating the polity, sluts like Paris Hilton flooding the popular press with their uncovered pudenda, lesbians like Andrea Dworkin poisoning the well of male-female relationships, and countless female professors turning modern-day universities into bastions of repressed speech.

    Far be it for me to piss in the Paglia Adoration Soup Tureen here, but if that’s the outcome of capitalism, I’ll take feudalism, thankee.

  • Yeah, and that’s worked out so well

    Yeah it did work out pretty well. Most of us uppity capitalist birds just get on with their self-directed lives just fine, so sorry if you hanker after the days of feudalism when men were men and women were property, but I think things have turned out pretty well under a capitalist system.

    And you make not like Paris Hilton, I have yet to meet anyone who says they do, but what possible relevance or significance does she have to anything? She is a cultural plaything and an irrelevance compared to the fact it is now easy for a women to exist as an autonomous human being and not just the property of someone whose only qualification is having a dick. All she proves is acting like an ass and being acclaimed for being a slut is not just for guys any more. It may not be an improvement but at least it’s more honest.

    Holding up a leftist like Hilary Clinton as a counterexample to the joys of a capitalist order is pretty strange. But who the hell is Andrea Dworkin? I seem to have managed to land my own also very capitalist guy without having ever even heard of her so she cannot be all that significant a figure.

    Us uppity birds have done ok. Hell I’m not even white and I am very into the whole heartless western capitalism thing 😛

  • I will have to side with Mrs. Albion and Thomas Jefferson here in that “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”