[ExI] Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps

[Damien Broderick]

At 12:40 AM 9/29/2007 -0700, Olga wrote:

>Naomi Wolf was public, all right ... but I never got the sense that she was
>ever thought of as much of an intellectual:
>
>http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20060122/ai_n16015894

Wolf graduated magna cum laude from Yale, and was a Rhodes scholar at 
Oxford. It's true that Paglia denounces her as someone who "cannot 
write a coherent paragraph. This is a woman who cannot do historical 
analysis... Naomi Wolf is an intelligent woman. She has been 
ill-served by her education." This doesn't mean she's not a "public 
intellectual"--just that she's one with whom some disagree and of 
whom some disapprove as a poor instance of the breed. Paglia, of 
course, comes in for similar treatment from other quarters.

Wolf's vision of Jesus and the lessons she draws from it are 
unpalatable to me, too--but would you say Carl Jung was not an 
intellectual? Thomas Aquinas?

Personally, I think that her article on "fascism in America" is 
overwrought and undernourished, but the elements of her topic are 
worth some discussion.

Damien Broderick