Comments on: Pagans, Jews, Neoconservatives

By: Chas S. Clifton

Chas S. Clifton — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 02:22:00 +0000

The "paganism" of Himmelfarb is the "paganism" of someone like Camille Paglia: display of the body, love of worldly success, and so on.

It is not capital-P Paganism as most of your readers understand, so many contemporary Pagans may feel baffled by the criticism.

Here is an interesting interview with Paglia by Ron "Crunchy Con" Dreher, by the way: "Camille Paglia, Defender of the West."

I remain concerned about the compulsive denigration of the West and the reductiveness so many leading academics in the humanities have toward their own tradition," she tells me. "They reduce it all to the lowest common denominator of racism, imperialism, sexism and homophobia. That's an extremely small-minded way of looking at culture and a betrayal of the career mission of these educators, whose job is to educate students in our culture."

By: cuupsres

cuupsres — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 00:08:00 +0000

Gelenter was not making his case overtly, but covertly, clothed in the usual RR prattle. So, I don’t think I’m doing him any favors by suggesting an overt motive that the majority of Americans might be repulsed by.

By: Bill Baar

Bill Baar — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 21:06:00 +0000

I like classical paganism but CUUPSRES just made Gelenter's case.

I think I'll just stick with the Iraqi Communist Party for now instead of these opiates.

By: cuupsres

cuupsres — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 18:24:00 +0000

Gelenter does have something to worry about and the article’s emphasis on support for Israel is really telling. Right wing Christian support for Israel ( mysteriously tied up with the Book of Revelation http://zmagsite.zmag.org/oct2002/berkowitz1002.htm) could become less decisive were paganism in the US to grow (even more than it already has). While we’re never likely to be a majority, our influence could gradually spell the end of support for the government of someone else’s holy land. So Gelenter and Himmelfarb fulminate using the language of the Religious Right (promiscuity, misery, death) to keep their allies whipped up. Pathetic, but then again the influence of Judaism is declining in the US from declinging numbers and the rise of Islam – whose followers have no special feeling about bringing about the Second Coming.