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Comments for the commentator
Interview, Dec, 2003
Dear Interview,
I was blown away by Camille Paglia's article, "The College Conundrum" [September 2003]--she definitely hit the nail on the head. I am a 29-year-old college student still trying to get my degree (after my third change in major), and what I see around me is, well, B.S. Tuition is rising higher and higher, the structure of classes can be laughable and often quite impersonal (with the job of teaching sometimes passed off to grad students), everyone is taught to conform, and any challenge made to the instructor's ideas is dismissed. I have definitely learned and lived more outside the "halls of education" than inside them, and yes, it was more rewarding than sitting in a classroom listening to dated rhetoric. Today it is easier to get a job through self-knowledge and skill than by flaunting a degree. A degree doesn't always make a smart person--I have known plenty of highly degreed idiots. Thank you for letting me know I am not the only person who feels this way about college.
DAN [last name withheld] Flagstaff, AZ
Dear Interview,
I couldn't believe I had actually read it, but there it was: "Rap is infectiously rhythmic, but the way it uses words short-circuits all emotions except rage" [October 2003]. It seems to me, Ms. Paglia, that it is bad form to comment on a genre of music without having first heard some of it. I am no historian of hip-hop, but even I know that there is a great deal of sad, reflective, funny, and we-are-having-a-good-time-dancing-at-this-party music out there that falls under the rubric of rap. I mean, turn on your radio, dude.
TAXI [last name withheld] Middletown, CT
Dear Interview,
As I read Camille Paglia's treatise on testosterone and daring [October 2003], I found myself asking: "What greater risk does a woman face than childbearing?" I have done some things that, by Ms. Paglia's standards, would be considered "male," but the fearsome specter of pregnancy, childbirth, and child rearing strikes fear in my soul like nothing else. Which might be precisely the reason I'm 31 years old and childless.
LUCINDA BREEDING Dallas
COPYRIGHT 2003 Brant Publications, Inc.
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