Probe: Naomi Wolf as CIA Cultural Cold War Asset

[Elihu]

i think it was klein that wrote "disaster capitalism" not wolf...... was it not? does it matter?

[Wombaticus Rex]

i think it was klein that wrote "disaster capitalism" not wolf...... was it not? does it matter?

It was, yes, and of course it matters. Fixed, thanks for pointing that out.

[Project Willow]

http://observer.com/2011/10/know-your-naomis-an-occupy-wall-street-guide/



Naomi Wolf
Naomi Wolf is an American feminist and political author. She is best known for the The Beauty Myth, feuding with Camille Paglia in The New Republic, and receiving unwanted sexual advances from Harold Bloom as an undergraduate at Yale.





Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein is a Canadian anti-corporate globalization activist and author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine. On October 6, she addressed the crowd at Zuccotti Park. Her speech, entitled, “The Most Important Thing In the World Now,” began “I love you” and was reprinted in The Nation, where she is a contributor, and The Occupy Wall Street Journal.

[bks]

Anyways, I casually brought this up to an academic friend, and to my surprise, she jumped onboard and provided me with another datapoint: her own conspiracy theory that Naomi Wolf was a CIA "cultural asset" who was put into play to counteract Camille Paglia.

what exactly about Camille Paglia did your friend think needed to be counteracted from the perspective of the CIA? Her libertarianinsm? Her love of Madonna? Her rigid, incoherent biological determinism?

She is an academic who, more than just about any other, exemplifies academia's central motivating emotion: the desire for revenge.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Her libertarianinsm? Her love of Madonna? Her rigid, incoherent biological determinism?

LMFAO! Well said! I will ask her.

(Probably the Madonna bit.)

[compared2what?]

ON EDIT: It was also a real question, fwiw. Because I actually don't know wtf she's saying there. I mean, is she talking about cramps? Makes no sense.

Maybe she's referring to the fact that women don't have conscious control of the contractions of the uterus and cervix, but it's not like men don't ever feel or express a sense of helplessness in regards to their own urges, whatever the physical differences.

I'm not completely sure, but I don't think she agrees: Because:

Male tumescence is an assertion of the separateness of objects.

...

I am so unable to figure out what she means there that it practically makes me feel like crying. Doesn't seem to be about helplessness regarding urges, though.

An erection is architectural, sky-pointing. Female tumescence, through blood or water, is slow, gravitational, amorphous. In the war for human identity, male tumescence is an instrument, female tumescence an obstruction.

Likewise. Or not precisely, anyway.

The fatty female body is a sponge. At peak menstrual and natal moments, it is locked passively in place, suffering wave after wave of Dionysian power.

She seems to be saying that as a matter of natural law, the female body exists to retain ejaculate and/or fluids for the purposes of reproduction, which nature ensures it will do by limiting the natural capacities of women to the passive endurance of pain, which they're naturally incapable of escaping. Due to also being naturally subject to power. As a function of not having any.

That's the best I can do.

I would say: "Wages of (original) sin, doncha know."

But in context, that assertion/instrument/obstruction stuff looks a little bit too much like a fancily worded way of saying that men not only can and should but must rape women because that's how civilizations get built, in the natural order of things. Which isn't really my idea of revolutionary thought. But I have to admit she didn't get it from the church or whatever. So at least it's her own innovation.

If that's what she's saying.

[General Patton]

I like it. Has a Julius Evola flavor to it, sans occultism.

[Project Willow]

I am so unable to figure out what she means there that it practically makes me feel like crying. Doesn't seem to be about helplessness regarding urges, though.

Agreed, in the second half of my sentence I was arguing with her. Sorry that was unclear.

She seems to be saying that as a matter of natural law, the female body exists to retain ejaculate and/or fluids for the purposes of reproduction, which nature ensures it will do by limiting the natural capacities of women to the passive endurance of pain, which they're naturally incapable of escaping. Due to also being naturally subject to power. As a function of not having any.

Interesting.

[compared2what?]

Her libertarianinsm? Her love of Madonna? Her rigid, incoherent biological determinism?

LMFAO! Well said! I will ask her.

(Probably the Madonna bit.)

By far and away her best and most endearing feature, if you ask me.

I'm not sure I really remember what her read on Madonna was, beyond that it had something to do with the unique soul-sister bond they shared as lapsed-Catholic-girl sex rebels. But there's actually nothing wrong with that. So maybe that was all there was to it.

[compared2what?]

I am so unable to figure out what she means there that it practically makes me feel like crying. Doesn't seem to be about helplessness regarding urges, though.

Agreed, in the second half of my sentence I was arguing with her. Sorry that was unclear.

Nah. I'm just dense.

She seems to be saying that as a matter of natural law, the female body exists to retain ejaculate and/or fluids for the purposes of reproduction, which nature ensures it will do by limiting the natural capacities of women to the passive endurance of pain, which they're naturally incapable of escaping. Due to also being naturally subject to power. As a function of not having any.

Interesting.

I'm a little too constrained by not knowing what a peak menstrual moment is or how it locks the fatty female body passively in place to feel confident about it, though. FTM, while I presume that giving birth is the peak natal moment she has in mind, strictly speaking, being born is decidedly both more natal and more peak.

So I guess that since I have no clue wtf she thinks she's saying, I might not be right about that, either.

[compared2what?]

FTM, while I presume that giving birth is the peak natal moment she has in mind, strictly speaking, being born is decidedly both more natal and more peak.

IOW: She means "parturitional." I just couldn't think of the word. So it's academic bad writing, on top of everything else.

Very minor point. Forgive me for making it.

[Project Willow]

IOW: She means "parturitional." I just couldn't think of the word. So it's academic bad writing, on top of everything else.

Very minor point. Forgive me for making it.

Forgive you? I just learned a new word! Thanks.

[worldsastage]

Camile Paglia is too reductionist and deterministic for my taste. I say this as someone trained in molecular biology. Hard to take her seriously when she intimates that Rhianna is some sort of representative of graceful femininity but bashes Taylor Swift and that other pop star...whats her name. Just did a search. It's Katy Perry.They are all vapid and boring and not at all revolutionary after my brief exposure to their "art." Not that everyone has to be exciting or anything but having recently been introduced to their art I can only say it takes all kinds. But I digress.

As for Ms. P, using her gift with words to shock and garner attention is not revolutionary though like Naomi Wolf I think their work serves a particular purpose. Doubt it's to help free our minds though it might make you stop to consider another point of view. Her gifts are however, hers to use as she wishes. While I sometimes get upset with Bell Hooks l think she had a point when she said of Paglia "Girlfriend just wanted to be right there in the middle of that white supremacist capitalist patriarchal stage doing her thing. Go, girl! You got it! It's all yours!" I don't find it appealing when self-promoting babble is used as a support for the likes of Rush Limbaugh, especially when that babble is given much media exposure as some sort of revolutionary thinking. But what do I know about cultural critics belonging to the new or old wave of feminists. I find Naomi Wolf similar in that she serves the PTB quite well, though she might be more subtle and yet more wacko. Give me the other Naomi any day.

[Jerky]

Scahill genocide with the Thomas Mountain what now?!

[jlaw172364]

Almost anyone marketed to you through the corporate press as an "intellectual" is a Glenn Beck rodeo clown. It's just a matter of degree. They exist to shape your opinions. To articulate thoughts before you think so you don't engage in actual thinking. I had this realization reading the paper once when the article writer started referring to Bernard-Henri Levi and some Ignatius guy as being public intellectuals. I'd never heard of either of them, so it sounded like some sort of marketing ploy. Paglia writes about celebrities? The only relevant fact about pop-culture mass-market corporate produced celebrities is that they are irrelevant distractions! Any academic that writes about themDoes thinking about Rihanna improve YOUR life? I suppose it's possible, but it's no substitute for actually thinking about your problems. What else can you say about them? They're role models? They're idols / gods? It's just a more high-brow version of what you find in People or US Weekly, or Tiger Beat, so that high brow types can rationalize away their biological / aesthetic infatuation with beautiful, but otherwise uninteresting people.