Interesting thoughts. I always think about the Corpus Hermeticum-assumed for centuries to be the oldest wisdom, now revealed as the syncretic product of the cosmopolitan Alexandrian man in late antiquity-with such ideas The point about Paglia’s horror at the womb and femininity as driver of her sympathy with the crystalline phallic male aesthetic six miles in the sky is a great one and I’ve always thought perhaps the root of her contemporary opposition to the transgender - why would natal males with whom her sympathy resides throw their birthright away OR the androgyny is made too literal, etc. (of course she’s possibly just fucking with us too)
Thanks! My disagreement/agreement with her maps onto your two options: I think her horror at the womb and femininity is really a bit much and I don't particularly share it, but I also think making androgyny too literal can be a genuine aesthetic-political mistake. Hence I have no opposition to the transgender but am sometimes interpreted as antagonizing, if from a starting point of sympathy or even identification, the nonbinary.
Interesting thoughts. I always think about the Corpus Hermeticum-assumed for centuries to be the oldest wisdom, now revealed as the syncretic product of the cosmopolitan Alexandrian man in late antiquity-with such ideas The point about Paglia’s horror at the womb and femininity as driver of her sympathy with the crystalline phallic male aesthetic six miles in the sky is a great one and I’ve always thought perhaps the root of her contemporary opposition to the transgender - why would natal males with whom her sympathy resides throw their birthright away OR the androgyny is made too literal, etc. (of course she’s possibly just fucking with us too)
Thanks! My disagreement/agreement with her maps onto your two options: I think her horror at the womb and femininity is really a bit much and I don't particularly share it, but I also think making androgyny too literal can be a genuine aesthetic-political mistake. Hence I have no opposition to the transgender but am sometimes interpreted as antagonizing, if from a starting point of sympathy or even identification, the nonbinary.
That, anyway, is how I take her gloss on Coleridge. Would be interesting to revisit in a couple weeks “as a class” lol.