61 Frames Per Second by John Constantine Today in Nerve's videogame blog: Street Fighter. The movie. A new one. With that chick from that Superman show. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about!
The Remote Island by Bryan Christian Mad Men's January Jones struts her stuff in Vanity Fair. Plus: Damages returns, the latest Gossip Girl guest star and Donna Martin capitulates.
To suggest that the West is an advanced culture, having produced the
"doctrines of democracy, civil liberties and feminism," is instantly a
faulty conclusion (although it's noted that Ms. Paglia seems almost
passive/aggressive in her opionionless opinion). Any society that
tries to subjugate nature is a society bent on destruction and the imposition of
itself on others. In slang terms, it's called a boundary problem. Anybody who
wants to reach a genuine union with God must first shed the arrogance
that is nearly congenital in (at least American) Western society, and
with that sloughing off goes the desire to mash the life out of another living
thing, human, animal, insect or plant. Then, finally, the individual
recognizes her own worth, and in doing so recognizes the worth of all
other objects found on this earth.
The original model for democrary was in
part intended to protect the individual in pursuit of her own destiny, but
even today's vigilant citizens are overwhelmed by the mob mentality of groups
working to subjugate those liberties for their own ends — you know who
they are because they are the congregations of the loudest, deafest and most
ignorant and fearful. What humans do have over animals is their ability
to use the power of reason to change their environment and their perceptions
of themselves. (In fact, animals have this ability as well, but rarely
encounter the kick-start to use it.)
Ms. Paglia doesn't understand the
given co-existence of good and destructive traits within the human animal — it's
not the traits that determine the outcome, it's the success of that person's
struggle that does. And this is what the founding fathers recognized and
decided, for the first time on such a scale, to set out to protect. It
is just as "natural" as the tendency to want to slug the person next to you
who's been stepping on your foot three times in the past hour. To degrade that
struggle as just somone trying to swim against her own tide is simply
another attempt at assert one's will over another (arrogance) and to denigrate
oneself and any others. LH 4/9/99
The choice of panelists for this discussion riveted my attention
immediately. I thought the gamut from Camille Paglia's agnosticism to
Thomas Moore's serene and studied perspective is a great balance on this
topic. I greatly admire the intellects of both these thinkers and was
pleased to make the aquaintance of Robert Francoeur, Frances Kissling
and especially Elaine Pagels as I have been following this thread.
Thanks for the thought-provoking discussion to all involved; my
Nerve membership application uploads today! DC 4/9/99
While reading the symposium on the relationship between sexuality and
spirituality, the responses to question two reminded me of a poem I
jotted down years ago:
Psssst!
It's hard to love a masochist
The inanity of such vanity
Will punish your own sanity
Or: one person's ecstasy can be another person's sin. FE 4/8/99
I find it troubling that Robert Francoeur's answer to the latest
VoiceBox question refers to the "power" of the male phallic symbol and
subsequently to the "mystery" of female sexuality. Apparently he finds
that male sexuality is both mysterious and powerful, representing
"life-giving power," while female sexuality represents at best "the
power of femaleness." It sounds like female sexuality is viewed as
somehow secondary, although women have as much "life-giving" power as
men do. Francoeur seems to be overlooking the importance of female
sexuality, which does represent the power of life as well as the power
of being female, just as the phallus represents the power of being male
and the power of life. LW 4/7/99
I love your magazine. I have grown to love it more so after having read
the VoiceBox article on religion. As a Catholic, I find your article to be
far more informative, supportive and fascinating than anything I have ever
read that attempts to shed light on the Church's stance on sex. Wonderful. Kudos. TZ 4/7/99
I tend to oversimplify, else I simply fail to understand. Therefore, I
feel that we as a society are spiritually immature and even primitive.
As a result, all we are and do reflects that immaturity and
primitiveness, much in the same way that a child shows a lack of
experience as it attempts to grow up. My two cents worth.
P.S. I like Nerve and generally like the offerings. Thanks and keep it
up. JH 4/1/99
I am so glad to read that Nerve will have the likes of Elaine Pagels
grace its pages! Elaine Pagels has done a great service by bringing some much needed
perspective to Christianity with her studies of its origins.
I can't articulate myself well enough on this matter: Elaine
Pagels is the most accessible writer on early Christianity.
If you haven't already read her books — The Gnostic Gospels; Adam, Eve, and the Serpent; and
The Origin of Satan; or her commentary on a particular gnostic text she translated
found in a chapter of The Nag Hammadi Library in English — please do! I haven't yet gotten deep enough into her work to read her truly
academic material, but I hope to eventually. Again, I am so happy to hear that Elaine Pagels will be at Nerve!
AC 3/26/99
