Authentic leftism is populist. It is based in working-class style, working-class language, working-class direct emotion, in an openness and brusqueness of speech. Not this fancy, contorted jargon of the pseudo-leftist of academe, who are frauds. These people who manage to rise to the top at Berkley, at Harvard, at Princeton, how many of these people are radical? They are career people. They are corporate types [...] They love the institutional context. They know how to manipulate the bureaucracy which has totally invaded and usurped academe everywhere. [...] They love to sit on endless committees. They love bureaucratic regulation. Not one "leftist" in American academe raised his or her voice against obscene growth of tuition costs, which have bankrupted a whole generation of young people. (Camille Paglia)

Authentic leftism is populist. It is based in working-class style, working-class language, working-class direct emotion, in an openness and brusqueness of speech. Not this fancy, contorted jargon of the pseudo-leftist of academe, who are frauds. These people who manage to rise to the top at Berkley, at Harvard, at Princeton, how many of these people are radical? They are career people. They are corporate types [...] They love the institutional context. They know how to manipulate the bureaucracy which has totally invaded and usurped academe everywhere. [...] They love to sit on endless committees. They love bureaucratic regulation. Not one "leftist" in American academe raised his or her voice against obscene growth of tuition costs, which have bankrupted a whole generation of young people.

Camille Paglia

Related topics

academe american authentic based brusqueness bureaucracy career context corporate direct emotion fancy generation growth jargon language love manage openness people radical regulation rise sit speech style top tuition voice young populist harvard leftist leftism princeton costs

Related quotes

I've always doubted that the socialists had a leg to stand on intellectually. They have improved their argument somehow, but once you begin to understand that prices are an instrument of communication and guidance which embody more information than we directly have, the whole idea that you can bring about the same order based on the division of labor by simple direction falls to the ground. Similarly, the idea [that] you can arrange for distributions of incomes which correspond to some conception of merit or need. If you need prices, including the prices of labor, to direct people to go where they are needed, you cannot have another distribution except the one from the market principle. I think that intellectually there is just nothing left of socialism. View quote
Friedrich Hayek
The writer is an ordinary man, not a spokesman for the people, and that literature can only be the voice of one individual. Writing that becomes an ode to a country, the standard of a nation, the voice of a party... loses its nature-it is no longer literature. Writers do not set out to be published, but to know themselves. Although Kafka or Pessoa resorted to language, it was not in order to change the world. I, myself, believe in what I call cold literature: a literature of flight for one's life, a literature that is not utilitarian, but a spiritual self-preservation in order to avoid being stifled by society. I believe in a literature of the moment, for the living. You have to know how to use freedom. If you use it in exchange for something else, it vanishes. View quote
Gao Xingjian
Don't forget that God sees you and watches you when you are in pain; He perceives even the beating of your heart. Consequently, He will not leave you without consolation and His fatherly protection. Naturally, the saints rejoiced in their afflictions; as for us, let us at least manage to accept affliction or pain patiently. My child, pray within your heart, and the name of Jesus will become for you a comforting balm so that you can bear this trial of yours in a way which benefits you. You will greatly benefit from this trial if you submit yourself to it patiently. So again I say to you, with the almighty armor of prayer continually approach the omnipotent Lord more often, and you will come to know how He wondrously lifts the burden of pain and marvellously gives rest to sufferers. View quote
Ephraim of Arizona
The logic and necessity of the new generation - and what they are so furiously opposed to - must be seen against a background of what has gone wrong in America. It must be understood in light of the betrayal and loss of the American dream, the rise of the Corporate State of the 1960's, and the way in which that State dominates, exploits, and ultimately destroys both nature and man. Its rationality must be measured against the insanity of existing "reason" - reason that makes impoverishment, dehumanization, and even war appear to be logical and necessary. Its logic must be read from the fact that Americans have lost control of the machinery of their society, and only new values and a new culture can restore control. Its emotions and spirit can be comprehended only by seeing contemporary America through the eyes of the new generation. View quote
Charles A. Reich
What an astounding thing is the voice! By what miracle is the hot magma of the earth transformed into that which we call speech? If out of clay such an abstract medium as words can be shaped what is to hinder us from leaving our bodies at will and taking up our abode on other planets or between the planets? What is to prevent us from rearranging all life, atomic, molecular, corporeal, stellar, diving? Who or what is powerful enough to eradicate this miraculous leaven which we bear within us like a seed and which, after we have embraced in our mind all the universe, is nothing more than a seed - since to say universe is as easy as to say seed, and we have yet to say greater things, things beyond saying, things limitless and inconceivable, things which no trick of language can encompass. View quote
Henry Miller