Camille Paglia on Post-Structualism: Debunking the Deconstructionists. (Contrast Post-Modernism)

In this Q&A, Camille Paglia explains why she abhors Post-Structuralism, the pseudo-intellectual/philosophical system championed by Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault.
Paglia argues that this "outmoded" and "valueless" philosophy, which has no place for historical context or psychological exploration, has no application to anything other than, at best, novels / narrative. Yet, with absolutely disastrous consequences, it has taken control over American academia -- where it is applied to almost everything within the humanities.

[@farcenter]

I'm in academia and I can tell you for a fact that people name drop Foucault as if his name was a prayer, and I'm certain they haven't read him. I know this because I've only graised the absolute bare minimum, and can still tell they have no idea what they're talking about. His name comes up like saying God bless you after sneezing.

[@CaptainMarget]

The man was abhorrent. Opening the door in furtherance of pedophelic interests is as bad as the act itself. For anyone unsure of what I am speaking to, have a look at the 1977 petition addressed to French parliament, demanding the age of sexual consent to be reduced from 15 to 13. While you're at it, notice the other names on the list. Derrida, Satre, de Beauvoir to name a few.

[@CaptainMarget]

I am a student of Psychology, next week I am tasked with presenting a piece on Foucault. I know my lecturer is bullish on his ideas, but I plan to tear the man down. Wonder how I will be graded....

[@farcenter]

@@CaptainMarget Keep a recording/ annotate everything you do and make sure it's 100% in line with the syllabus and assignment. If you do that, and are graded unfairly you can take it up with the administration and can get things sorted, even if they do it begrudgingly. Good luck

[@kennybaga7086]

@@CaptainMargetcan we have an update ?😅

[@DG-ee9hi]

He’s insanely tedious to read. His sentence and argument structure are intentionally obtuse and long winded. Feels like the modern art museums, where it feels like the dead artists are simply laughing that their scat-art is revered and people are paying millions for it

[@joaquinvargas3915]

I've been a Camille fan since Sexual Personae was published, but haven't checked in on her in many years. So glad to see she's still as brilliant and vital as ever. She's needed more now than ever, of course.

[@EddieReischl]

I feel sorry for people who don't think music is its own language. Dr. Paglia makes me wish I had more than a remedial understanding of the languages of the other arts. There's probably material for a song in all of that somewhere, I'll have to think on it.

[@sarameiragootblatt1819]

Where the heck is sheeeee?!!!!!

[@EdStark22]

This was at a movie theatre premier for the Muppets.

[@adsones]

Probably working on her new book on native Americans

[@DefenderofFuture]

You know how brilliant she is because you can see how many thoughts she's juggling while she's just trying to answer one question.

[@tjitjo]

love camille. So insanely good and sooo important.

[@franklee1550]

Paglia is brilliant and fearless.

[@martindeckert6035]

Why? just because you say so?

[@andrealmeida1022]

Really, what's not to love about this woman

[@adsones]

Exactly

[@jkdarrow]

I love this woman.

[@MrManumona]

Magnificent...as always.

[@jeremyogrizovich3247]

What a power house of intellect.

[@hasgoodles7807]

It’s all over the art schools now too. I taught there. And left.

[@nathanmulroy8313]

Care to elaborate? interested in your experience

[@timon20061995]

@@nathanmulroy8313 I believe what op meant is how art school now strongly believe all the art work in the past were about power. So they try to counter balance it by reject any western art from the past or any male artist. And heavy focus on feminism art or contemporary art that fit the narrative of current liberal political view. So when student learn such a narrow art point of view, their art basically becomes a tool of political debate instead of focus on art itself. I believe this is why you can see so much similarity on students in most of the best art programs like MFA program in Yale or Columbia instead of showing their point of view in art

[@lananewman1064]

I LOVE YOU!!! QUEEN EMPRESS !

[@61757]

paglia and Theil for co-President

[@abooswalehmosafeer173]

Good to hear the elites fight among themselves

[@loudsmokes74]

I absolutely ADORE her! ❤️💪 🤓

[@prschuster]

It's the new alphabet.

[@Jide-bq9yf]

The problem . Its time consuming and laborious to develop and refine the mind through study and reflection . And so we are left struggling to acquire an individual perspective leaving us perpetually at the mercy of the academy ( including Camille Paglia ) .

[@sebastianesxxx]

A problem that I found myself in sometimes is that I'm scared to realize someday that all that precious time I spend on developing my mind was a waste of time. I think it has to do with our ego.

[@Jide-bq9yf]

@@sebastianesxxx was there any other option , if you are that way inclined ? Your mind will never be a waste , it’s the incandescent light in the vast darkness of Being . You see more than most , it’s the difference between good vision and bad . It’s a win win .

[@2fiafisdoafw34]

No pain no gain.

[@2fiafisdoafw34]

@@sebastianesxxx If you want stay stupid and ignorant, go further.

[@hasgoodles7807]

No she’s a mole. So was I. You need moles.

[@mikeorclem]

A told my girlfriend she drew her eyebrows too high. She seemed surprised.

[@deselby9240]

love it

[@dannydefe]

What was the context where A told her that????

[@mikeorclem]

@@dannydefe ummm...

[@acetoz5158]

Lacan isn’t post-structuralist. Derrida’s reading of Lacan is post-structuralist, but Zizek shows Derrida’s misunderstanding of Lacan in Sublime Object of Ideology. Zizek argues that Lacan is a rationalist, or the most radical contemporary version of the Enlightenment.

[@jamesbarlow6423]

This dismissive rant is supposed to be a grand refutation of Foucalt 'in toto'?

[@reine5372]

Can someone explain to me her disliking to Derrida's deconstruction? I find its adoption completely liberating, especially when it comes to conversing with other people and my own opinion on certain topics. Some might see it as a mere "objective" view of a controversial or multi-sided subject, but for me it goes even beyond that (especially in politics). To be try and detach yourself from all bias and look at both sides of the equation with a sympathetic and reproachful approach, gives both subjects a completely new meaning. To understand why and how they both exist, why do people turn to that one and not the other, gives a supreme consciousness to reality. I've struggled a lot with finding people that share the same political views as myself, until I noticed that it was because we didnt even define political activity in the same way. I didnt want to choose the side, and I didnt like calling myself a centrist, yet I sympathized with both mythos and tried my hardest to understand them. sure I still have some biases, but those were based AFTER I engaged myself with both realities. Every time I feel like I am at peace with my decision, some couple of months pass and I find a new thing to try, which helps my opinions grow as well.

[@soyelpulpoverde]

The thing with derrida is that he has three or four interesting ideas. All the rest of what he wrote is a swarm of words and an abuse of abstract academic language that not even he himself understands. Same with Lacan. On the other hand, Derrida's idea of ​​deconstruction (which was borrowed from Heidegger) is today used by ideologues to "deconstruct" everything except their own agenda and meta-narratives, which they are supposedly opposed to.

[@dinojoe1788]

Derrida and Foucault are two of the most misunderstood philosophers currently. Why their work appears so unappealing and reprehensible is because people outright reject their conclusions without looking at the intricately crafted methodology. Nor does anyone respect the methodology itself independent of the philosophers’ conclusions (including those who most propound them, which I call the “pseudo-postmodernists”)

[@dinojoe1788]

Foucault for example discussed how much of our ethical schema are necessarily contextual and rely on non-essential conditions that make them possible in the first place. Because they are non-essentialist, they then evolve throughout time, which he used the historical account to demonstrate. Derrida on the other hand wasn’t out to “deconstruct” society, but to demonstrate the ‘autoimmunity’ of concepts which we take as stable absolutes that have certain essential forms yet to be discovered. The constructions we have built, when trying to establish themselves as absolutes, de-construct themselves because of making absolutes out of abstract human ideas is impossible. Hence why “post-structuralism” is so popular: conceptual structures and forms have been revealed to be less-stable than previously thought. All that said, neither philosopher went forth to make normative claims about the social phenomenon they were talking about. That was contemporary politics who went on to half-ass their method. As Foucault and Derrida would say: there are still categories incredibly useful to us and there are many aspects of society that are not inherently good or bad, but simply “dangerous”. Just because things might be social constructs does not give one the MacGuffin device to reject all of them in order to replace them with your own social constructs xD

[@kaidenkondo5997]

@@soyelpulpoverde this is a poor ad hominem ramble.

[@kaidenkondo5997]

camille paglia doesnt really understand Derrida. I suggest not wasting your time here on her since it looks like you are quite intelligent and understood the beauties of Derrida and she does not.

[@anilusta5486]

> postmodernism (or nihilism) is basically the normal academical mentality > in the market dominated modern consumer society, not a fiction of some French writers. It is an act of intellectual adaptation to a world which seems to have no sense in it. . Postmodernism/nihilism/ irrationalism seem to be a capitulation to consumer society -- and the transfer of that society, with its "star system" and aestheticizing of cognitive questions -- into the academic world.

[@bilbobaggins4403]

William Blake? Now that's interesting.

[@ArthurCSchaperMR]

WOW! BOLD! OUCH!

[@DEWwords]

Even Baudrillard wrote a book titled, Forget Foucault, but I managed not to read it after I decided to forget Baudrillard, and the rest of the Post-Marxist French and their shallow, adolescent circular critiques of o, god everything.

[@DEWwords]

In Butlers case, it all seems to be about imagining that the world is the world she wants to imagine is the world she's living in and her hijack of the dream itself is all that's required to make it all real. Gog bless us all-in-one.

[@DEWwords]

If you believe inTink', clap your hands!

[@omalone1169]

Link?

[@steveodavis9486]

French political thought is a plague on humanity. How can they be accepted by rational people? Guess you have to be confused nihilistic like intolerant hate loving Wokes.

[@kaidenkondo5997]

ad hominem

[@Vdevelasko]

I hate that no one critisizing post-structuralism never mentions Deleuze and Guattari (basically they ignore anything that isn't Foucault or Derrida 90% of the time) being probably the most influential ones in philosophy in general rn. Post-structuralism is pretty diverse despite some common ground which is pretty shaky. Generally they are caricaturised instead of understood, not to say that these authors arent critisizable but it's hard to find good critics to these authors that are... well, legitimate, I'll excuse Paglia bc this is a pretty informal conference but they are pretty much targeting the ones that the easiest to debunk (tho they have some points, particulary foucault).

[@kennybaga7086]

She debunks those 3 because they’re the most followed and read between the post structuralists… I’m pretty sure the lambda hasn’t read Deleuze or Guattari

[@Morphdog9819]

There's a reason she focuses on Foucault and Derrida, it's because they make up at least 50% of the curriculum in any literary theory / cultural criticism class in any American university. I am speaking from personal experience. We did not discuss Deleuze or Guattari at all at my university.

[@prschuster]

I'd like to know how Foucault would reduce the natural sciences, or the material conditions of social class, to language. This is an honest question, because I have very little knowledge of philosophy.

[@kouka7221]

I think the better term here would be "discourse" or "rhetoric" rather than language. Foucault shared scant sentiments regarding natural sciences (he held a considerable amount of skepticism to the medicine and more general sciences (especially those that concerned social or human aspects)) but he continuously likens social class as being part of a dialectic of power both exerted and received, as well as the consignment of those that subjugate and those that are subjugated, regarding which material conditions serve as a representative and a conduit. Foucault is less concerned with material manifest rather than the rhetorical implications that their existences (whatever context they may be in) in relation to one another postulate. Edit: The generalization of purely acting within language would be most directly attributed to Derrida's philosophy; Foucault, Lacan, and Deleuze more loosely.

[@prschuster]

@@kouka7221 I have no training in philosophy. Do you think Focault has been misrepresented by academics?

[@kouka7221]

@@prschuster Certainly. Anytime any sort of conceptual or ideological "hierarchy" is brought up, people flock to Foucault. This is extremely prevalent in the realm of identity politics, since Foucault postulates all standards of conduct and being (through social spheres, institutions, and cultures (that includes religion)) are all arbitrary and fallible (since they're only reflective of the episteme (the current social-ethical climate) at the time and subject to change on a whim), and conversely give rise and prominence to the marginalized "proletariat" groups, in a Marxist hierarchy that spans the entirety of the human experience. It's a no-brainer that, if some college dilettante wants to back up their assertions regarding oppression or power (which is very much "in" these days), they'd inevitably circle around to citing Foucault (the "hip" choice, since Adorno's out of style and a bit TOO specific in his philosophical breadth)

[@prschuster]

@@kouka7221 Again, having never read Foucault, I understand Marx and the material basis of social class. I get how it affects gender relations and race. To me, language is based on maintaining the material conditions of social class hierarchies, rather than creating them a priori. I get the feeling that the woke crowd blames the language of hierarchy, and believes that you can change these hierarchies by changing the language (getting rid of microaggressions) without addressing the material conditions (private ownership of the economy). Language maintains hierarchies, but it does not create them. Does that square with you?

[@kouka7221]

@@prschuster I'd say language extraneously interprets hierarchies, it more so reflects them rather than defines a clear-cut image of them (and it certainly does not create or develop them). As for your assertions regarding attempts to change those hierarchies through changing language, I agree wholeheartedly. Even Foucault changed academia in more of an ideological/conceptual sense than in a "linguistic" sense (it's the same discussion, only with emphases placed elsewhere). Does that make sense? I might be putting things a bit too muddily lol

[@dylanobrien1547]

Paglia's claim here that Foucault concealed influence from (plagiarized?) Durkheim is very strong and also questionable. It needs to be backed up to be convincing. The mere fact that Durkheim and Foucault had similar subject matter and reached similar conclusions does not mean that intellectual dishonesty or plagiarism was involved. For example, you can find similar subject matter and conclusions in St. Augustine and Plotinus. That doesn't mean St. Augustine plagiarized Plotinus. I realize that Paglia is speaking off the cuff here, and can't be expected to conjure up a detailed argument at moment's notice. But it would be interesting if someone could put forth a detailed comparison of Durkheim and Foucault's Discipline and Punish to see whether Discipline and Punish is actually derivative of Durkheim's work.

[@omalone1169]

Please update like Masicka !

[@MrWhiskeycricket]

I think she's being harsh not simply because he "stole" anything, it's that his cult of personality venerates him for his supposed originality when someone else actually said/did it first.

[@alannolan3514]

I love her. I love derrida. I am crying.

[@soyelpulpoverde]

I am genuinely want to to know what people find in Derrida. For me the man has three or four ideas and the rest of what he wrote is not even understood by himself.

[@kaidenkondo5997]

@@soyelpulpoverde I am curious as to what texts you have read of him? He is a beautiful and melodic writer, ideas aside. His writings were most definitely understood by him, why else would he have wrote them? This is just vulgar debasement!

[@soumyabanerjee8879]

You are right in everything you said

[@Albeit_Jordan]

Camille I love you in the Insidious/Conjuring movies

[@benisturning30]

She didn’t debunk anything. She made broad statements that may or may not be true.

[@hasgoodles7807]

Yeah, she’s dumb, you smart.

[@benisturning30]

@@hasgoodles7807 actually she’s very smart. I would have expected more.

[@SebastianJArt]

@@benisturning30 it was said in mochery of Ben A (you). She's totally debunking.

[@algeanephila]

@@SebastianJArt I don't know what is your definition of debunking, but the entire video can be resumed to "they're wrong for questioning these obvious things such as gender being biological". at best she said that if you know other philosophers, post-structuralists become immediately wrong, even tho the same principle of "you could read even more" could be applied to the other names she mentioned as "a cure", it's like she's not even recommending to read more but to "read these instead", "agree with these instead"

[@SebastianJArt]

@@algeanephila Please try again, the comment is incoherent. Camille forbids no question... I can't imagine what you're trying to get at.

[@jeviosoorishas181]

Foucault is an inferior thinker and a lot of his peers and contemporaries, even within France knew that and constantly mocked him for it. But the utility of Foucault is that he's a propagandist for people who want radical politics without any restraints put on themselves, including that of intellectual honesty.

[@Alex-dc3xp]

Not to mention that Foucault was also a pedofile,pervert rapist of Tunisian boys.

[@alexandrucode6388]

@@Alex-dc3xp there's not really enough proofs for that affirmation.

[@omalone1169]

@@alexandrucode6388 who you responding to

[@kaidenkondo5997]

literally no evidence for your claim. Foucault is one of the most celebrated academics of the 20th century. Paglia will never be remembered nearly as significantly.

[@atomariola6410]

I love professor Paglia, but she's wrong: nobody "got rid of" Derrida or Lacan. They are entrenched inflections in western intellectual history, for better or worse. Foucault was a bit of a trickster, and there is a destructive impulse in post structualism vis a vis art. That said, the problem is the amplification of these figures in academia which misapplies obediently in sloppy misguided ways "deconstruction" to all things, including biology, which is shamefully anti intellectual.

[@IanRobertDouglas]

Charlatan. What she says has nothing to do with what Foucault researched and wrote.

[@ladislavnemeth3001]

Is this a joke or something? She did not say half a meaningful sentence that would be relevant for the topic or any of the authors...

[@NelsonClick]

This little exchange was actually very enlightening to me. Not the subject matter; which Paglia deftly retracted and put in it's place, but the sly scheming tactic by some people to ask a simple question that they know requires a complex answer. Jordan Peterson once chastised an interviewer for doing this. My question is why? Why do that? I feel it's an egotistical plot to turn highly intelligent people like Paglia into philosophical jukeboxes to make themselves feel smart. They walk up, insert a quarter, press a button and listen to the "music" while they sit back and judge and think of themselves as being intelligent. Because of this exchange here that made me see it so clearly when people do this to me now I call them out on it. Note how this lady walked away from the microphone immediately after asking so as not to be exposed. She didn't really want an answer. She wasn't confused or needed clarity. Her ego needed to attach itself to a REAL intellectual. "Forgive my ignorance" indeed.

[@sydnie6731]

You’re thinking too hard about this. She probably just didn’t know what post-structuralism was which was necessary to understand the topic, and was embarrassed to ask. Plus Paglia seemed overjoyed to answer it.

[@NelsonClick]

@@sydnie6731 Not a chance. Not everything in life; and especially things learned in a university, can be reduced to a quick little nibble statement that can be ingested in the here and now.

[@sydnie6731]

“There’s a 0% chance she didn’t know what post-structuralism was”

[@dar6031]

You seem like exactly the arrogant academic she debunks. Im listening to it & not embarrassed to say I had poor understanding of the term, which, by the way, is subject to some interpretation unlike hard science physical and chemical definitions. So weird that you can be so dismissive & insulting on account of a simple Question that could have been restated (possibly even to your satisfaction?) as “please give us your interpretation of the term post structuralism.” Petty does not even begin to describe your post in this forum.

[@NelsonClick]

@@dar6031 LOL. That response is so lightweight that if it was transformed into a rock and thrown at a window it wouldn't even make a "clink" noise on the glass. Focus on message - not the messenger.

[@paulawakefield7869]

Ok, plagiarism is not ok but adaptation is, and surely it's ok for someone to discover e.g. Jane Austen's work via any one of its representations. We might not appreciate the representations (particularly if we are committed to a source) but they can be useful and / or enjoyable. All of this happens in and through language (s). I'm no fan of Foucault and I understand that Derrida reached a point of saying no - no to Foucault too.

[@yetthesunstillshines]

ok so she didn't get any fucking thing about any of the authors she mentions lol.

[@kaidenkondo5997]

the ramblings of someone with a dogmatic agenda, who seems to not have read or understood either Foucault or Derrida's core ideas.

[@fetishmagic2419]

What an embarrassment

[@SebastianJArt]

Explain honey.

[@fetishmagic2419]

@@SebastianJArt k honey. First I’ll concede that the I think genuinely naive question (what is post-structuralism?) is a poor question that basically sets the the straw man argument she will then further exploit. Second, she interprets post-structuralism not as an ex post facto invented epochal term, but as a conspiratorial triad of names. Third, said figures are not unantagonistic with each other and their thought: and they certainly don’t conclude in agreement that everything is linguistic. It’s rather ironic that her attacks against Foucault are so properly applicable to her own case.

[@SebastianJArt]

​ @Fetish Magic Bless your heart. You perceive Post Structuralism as "an epochal term" rather than the language stranded set of axioms that it is. Talk about naïve. Whatever differing conclusions the triad may have had were inconsequential - the rotting axioms on which their agreements and derisions rest are the glue that binds them together and to Post-Structuralism. "Its like the protestant church claiming diversity of thought on the count of its many denominations," to paraphrase Paglia. Mere conclusions are for careerists, grade grubbers and Pharisees. Scrutiny of axioms, as well as the perfect transparency of axioms is what real thinkers look for as they read. Paglia says simply: "I believe in the power of nature." That alone, for the learned, invalidates your last pathetic point on the matter. What an embarrassment.

[@fetishmagic2419]

@@SebastianJArt your quote “I believe in the power of nature” as well as your disavowal of the history of thought illuminates your position well. The teleology and expression of thinking is not axiomatic, so there again you’ve revealed your posterior as they say, honey. Stunning quote you cited there sis, “belief”, “power,” “nature,” it’s giving the misreading and ideological appropriation of Nietzsche circa 90 years ago. If ur girl’s triad is your ministry, I could see why you’d disavow history in favor of a craven and seductive plunge into the ahistoricity of unquestioned metaphysics. Shamelessly tho, as you should

[@SebastianJArt]

@@fetishmagic2419 My disavowal of your farce rendition of the history of IDEAS. Not thought. You’re hopelessly trying to graft epistemology onto history - making epochs out of ages and missing the larger picture.

[@MagicFunc]

This is just a right wing account of post structuralism. Nothing insightful.

[@fruitylerlups530]

its so completely disingenuous and she is relying on the ignorance of her audience

[@EmperorNero]

As someone whos read Focault, no she is pretty dead on.

[@dinojoe1788]

@@EmperorNero what did u read of him?

[@MagicFunc]

@Prasanth Thomas This isn't critiquing, this is just a really old right wing interpretation of post structuralism. Which, obviously, has no real engagement with Foucault in any meaningful way.

[@MagicFunc]

@@EmperorNero I really doubt that you have.

[@malichelete_music]

The thing is, she is fighting the unfightable. Foucault and Derrida are the real deal.

[@TheSapphire51]

The real deal in what exactly?

[@patrickparsons2378]

​@@TheSapphire51The real deal in pretentious and fantasist nonsense. The best thing to do is ignore Foucault and rest and use your own brain. The damage their irrational and ill-informed ideas have done to Western academia is immense.

[@davereese6614]

Take a deep breath. Settle down...