Camille Paglia on Masculinity & Femininity 

There are two wolves within you; One is Apollo, the other is Dionysus

“ Of course I read feminist theory”

Paglia is a brilliant, misunderstood, brave woman. Her work is much needed to break down ideological and manipulative trash in our culture. Thank you for this video.

I read Paglia in grad school in the 1990's. She was and is brilliant. Always wish I had her as a professor. Thankfully she writes and lectures a lot for the world to learn from her. Thanks for this video.

I read Sexual Personae last year. It staggered me how well-read Paglia was and how deeply she'd thought about so much art. Even when her ideas weren't totally convincing they were fascinating. Also, when it comes to analysing the history of the West, I think the book overlaps nicely in quite a few places with Iain McGilchrist's The Master and his Emissary, and also Spengler to a certain degree.

I like how she says okay after almost every phrase she says. I found it strange when I first came across her but it grew on me alot after listening to her for awhile.

Apollo is the left-side of the brain (rational, linear, controling, sequential, technological). Dionysus is the right-side of the brain (intuitive, holistic, yielding, simultaneous, artistic)

Criminally under subbed channel for the content quality shown here. Well done.

I've just discovered your channel this weekend and I been listening to many of your videos. Your material is tremendously interesting, well produced, amazingly profound and strongly thought provoking! Keep it up man!!!

This is inspired me to read Paglia's works further. Thank you.

Excellent overview of Paglia's work, and how it relates to current events. I read all of her work when it was new, and I have been enthralled by her brilliance for years. Her prescience was epic. Thanks, great job.

Incredible analysis and compilation of footage! This channel needs more followers!

Could watch this for hours. Will definitely read her work.

*_“Any sudden increase in interest over sex differences, therefore, must be regarded as a danger signal for women, particularly, in a patriarchal society where men find it advantageous to prove on biologic premises that women should not take part in shaping the economy and the political order. On these premises elaborate convictions serving the interests of masculine ideologies become strategical means of preserving masculine superiority in the economic and political world by convincing women that innately she is glad to keep out of it”_* Elsewhere she says *_“Once and for all we should stop bothering about what is feminine and what is not. Such concerns only undermine our energies. Standards of masculinity and femininity are artificial standards. All that we definitely know at present about sex differences is that we do not know what they are. Scientific differences between the two sexes certainly exist, but we shall never be able to discover what they are until we have first developed our potentialities as human beings. Paradoxical as it may sound, we shall find out about these differences only if we forget about them. In the meantime what we can do is to work together for the full development of the human personalities of all for the sake of general welfare”_* Excerpts from Dr. Bernard J Paris’s book Karen Horney: A Psychoanalyst's Search for Self-Understanding Appendix B Women’s Fear Of Action

I was recently reading Julius Evola's Eros and the mysteries of love. In chapter 4 of the book he spends a great deal of time on the Apollo and Dionysus distinction. On page 142 of the inner traditions publication he notes that pre orphic worship of Dionysus saw for the most part women in the dominate role, in some cases it was only women who participated in initiation.

Authoritarianism is not Apollonian. Excess is always irrational and Dionysian. Apollonian people are conservative and close-minded, but believe in justice and diplomacy. That's why Ayn Rand associates Apollo with libertarianism. Libertarianism doesn't kill individuality. I'd say masculinity is not about staying in the Apollonian mode, which is orderly and sheltered from challenging experiences. It is about going into the Dionysian territory, mapping it (science) and conquering it. A cowboy is Dionysian (physicality and energy), but masculine because he structures the world arround and turns it Apollonian.

I have not gotten into Camille as much as I should have. I wish she’d do more speeches, podcasts, videos, etc those are some chunky books of hers

Love your channel, I usually feel an aversion towards video essays but what I’ve seen so far has been really well done. Looks like I’ll finally get around to my copy of sexual personae. Love from North Africa

Great presentation. Very underrated channel. Thanks for your efforts

Some women seem to be more Apollonian than Dionysian, though. Julia Morgan designed and decorated a whole castle for William Randolph Hearst and Heidi Lamar developed frequency hopping, the technology behind WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS.

Well, Nietzsche was an artist. He, as many guys, probably saw everything he did as ideally masculine. The day people empirically prove the usefulness and objectivity of beauty I'll start seeing art as masculinity. Men just shouldn't stop being artistic, though. Everybody has masculine and feminine energies and we should honor our feminine tendencies. You can only know what manliness is if you know what womanliness is.

The guys at DailyWire wouldn't like this. Keep up the good work, boyo

I love your videos, especially these shortest ones. Fantastic work!

Bringing up Apollo and Dionysius without Nietzsche?! Blasphemy!

I've heard Camille say she was transgender and how her Halloween costumes were a way to express that but clearly she didn't mean it in the way it's currently used. She was talking about her level of male energy and understanding of men and the problems they face. My partner has a similar energy and is bisexual like Camille, although Camille calls her self a lesbian. These types of women are often very intelligent and creative and tend to have more male friends than female. They're definitely not the type of women though to cut off their tits and take testosterone, they're still proudly women and feminine, they're just on the opposite end of the spectrum to your extreme girly girl.

I like to refer to Paglia as "the finest mind ever lost to leftism" that woman has the spirit of a Caesar.

This whole Apollo/Dionysus dichotomy reminds me that there are two types of people in the world: people who think there are two types of people in the world, and people who rightly do not think that.

I've watched this video twice... And may have listened to it when I was supposed to be working.. but man I am still processing all of the great ideas presented here. Paglia is a great mind, clearly influenced by Nietzsche. Outstanding work on this video my friend. Very well done!

A nice doco. Thankyou, I will share it :)

an excellent, erudite and insightful analysis of Camille. Im a huge fan of Paglia and really respect this overview of her philosophy

I believe her name is pronounced “Pah-lia”. I mostly but don’t always agree with her. She’s arrogant as hell, but she’s earned it, because she’s an absolutely brilliant, absolutely fearless iconoclast.

Man, i can't wait for this one.

Camille does not always associate the Apollonian with masculinity. In the Chapter 19 of "Sexual Personae", she associates aristocracy and beauty with H. G. Well's Eloi post-human race's non-utilitarianism and lack of physical movement. IIRC she also says, on the book, that Oscar Wilde is effeminate because of his high mentalization, which is an anti-Dionysian condition.

17.58 Malinowski on Aborigines, 19.23 man fights woman's biological domination by emplying culture... but Paglia sees the tensions and struggle as essential, and so when society becomes decadent then the end is nigh...Paglia has quite possibly , with this theory, nailed it, and if this is true then we are in big trouble now.

Excellent video. I don't agree with Paglia's association of Dionysus with the feminine divine principle, but I see where she's coming from. I'd more agree with someone like BAP or, to an extent, Alexander Dugin, that Dionysus represents not the feminine, but an excess of energy and life, which can come in both intoxicating and violent forms, sometimes both. I think Dionysus just as much a god of a warrior's bloodlust as revelry. Earth Mother, like in Dugin's philosophy, is the true opposite to Apollo, Dionysus somewhere in the middle, Dionysus the hidden face of Apollo who derives joy from conquest.

Thank you. I miss Camille so much.

The Apollonian is only a state of mind. Its characteristics are sought after by rational people, but never experienced. That said, Apollo's values are what makes man confront nature. We try to turn the unknown into known, the unpredictable into predictable, the unsafe into safe. But you can't confront nature without Dionysian exploration, risk-takingness and physicality.

"Vamps and Tramps" also contains some excellent essays.

Great work Russell. Regarding the Apollo/Dionysus dichotomy, I find Rudolph Steiner's Ahriman/Lucifer a good parallel that can further elucidate the concept. I have never read any of Steiner's books, just listened to some talks on a few of his ideas, many seemed quite unconvincing but I found that this one at least gives some good lenses to view opposite yet complementary dynamics and forces.

The meme Apollonian / Dionysian relationship with the masculine/feminine grinds my gears because it is only inferred from the relationship of the feminine with natural power, and then of that power to Dionysus. There is no reason to associate the other qualities of the god with femininity, in fact I would often do the opposite. These are both male gods for a reason.

This woman needs a therapist to tell her that it's okay to like masculine things and still be a woman lmao. When I hear her talk about her identity issues it's blindingly obvious that she's just confused, but hasn't taken the adequate time to clear it up.

Art is part of masculinity? Art causes motion, it literally makes you move impulsively without critical thinking. Taliban hates music exactly because of that. I know the greatest artists were all men, but they made all that art for money given by rich families to please its influential women. I wonder how much more advanced human technology would be if men dropped inutilities (some forms of art, some sports, unnecessary violence, etc.) and channeled our agressivity to overcome space and time limitations via useful inventions.

I wish she’d come out of hiding! It’s rare to hear someone as articulate, unwavering and passionate speak about art and culture - especially culture that most intellectuals deem “low brow”. I share her love of RHOBH haha

okay but like even as Camille describes sex differences it’s still obvious to me that there is a dialectic between human’s physiological sexual dimorphism and the culturally manifested differences between men and women’s social worlds, to the point that drawing a hard line between physiology and culture when looking for the etiology of sex differences is silly. toolmaking is a social-psychological endeavor even as much as the urge to make the tools is generated by physiological realities. And I think it’s dubious to assume we can use modern peoples as surrogate objects of study for prehistoric peoples, especially when you’re making conclusions as broad as nobody had any concept of how women got pregnant. Ancient peoples had culture as much as we do, but the overwhelming majority of material culture from the deep past is lost to us. we still have no reason to assume of they all thought similarly to contemporary indigenous australians. why would the entire prehistoric world have the same spiritual cosmology and understanding of procreation? they’ve all seen nut before. it’s entirely possible that some peoples would’ve privileged some types of material knowledge, like a basic understanding of pregnancy, while others emphasized an understanding of birth and life that is more spiritual/psychological. Just because culture has elaborated on natural sexual dimorphism to define the boundaries and characteristics of man and woman doesn’t prove that gender can’t be socially constructed just like it doesn’t prove that gender is never constructed from physiological realities. They inform each other

Her views on age of consent scares me

Excellent video as always

This channel will be big

I see that most women are feminine. The rest is neutral. Butch lesbians, for example, have neutralized themselves for certain reasons. Men, on the other hand, can be either masculine, feminine or something in between. Even amid the hypermasculine cultue of the Kamakura period, there were men who were both samurais and female impersonators in the theater. And during the 100-year Jaunpur-Bhojpur War in India, homosexual men that initially lived as a third gender to signal their interest in men, eventually became warriors just like their straight counterparts.

I’m a fan of Paglia’s work, but there’s one thing to the “Sky Father” rule: Shintoism holds the highest deity to be Amateratsu , the Sun goddess. Granted, Susano’o is the main antagonist & the thunder god. And while it holds up everywhere else, seems the 1 exception (that would still prove the rule)

great as always

Look at all of the answers it gives us about how human nature has been shaped throughout history. What makes male and female scared should be common knowledge.

What was the music at the end. Very distracting.

7:31 " humans didn't understand how pregnancy occured" - I would need a source for this

Sex vs gender. Always keep the difference in mind. The genderists want to drop the word sex and the concept.

This video was intense. Great job!

This is going to be good.

The Minoan society was pretty much matriarchal but, oddly enough, it didn't seem to be in a regressed tribal stage. This society had matriarchs as it's leaders, and men in society pretty much either being second class citizens or acquiring social status in a way more sluggish way compared to women. Oddly enough though, there was pretty much a lot of competition between women. The Minoans mirrored a lot of the matriarchal concepts you were mentioning earlier: Creative, in connection with nature, saw women as being "magical" and interacted with animals quite often. The thing that does not fit though, is how they had high end technology compared to a lot of tribal people and had high end art compared to them also. What gives? What if the matriarchal mindset was indeed needed after a former "fall from grace" period, and we indeed had to understand nature given that we fell so badly? That we had to put an emphasis upon reproduction, childbirth, symbiosis with nature and social cohesion, because this were key points to be emphasized in that period, so we didn't die? The Venus demilo was a poster girl to aspire to so we didn't die, as you mention in 5:07 onward. I do wonder if it's not necessarily that one rules over the other, but like seasons change and clothes adapt, the same happens with this duality between the matriarchal and patriarchal mindset. We fell from grace, we embraced the mothers hug so we didn't die out in the wild and then, no mother lasts forever, so it dies. Alone in the wilderness, with no titty to suckle on, we encounter a fatherly figure that makes us go following him miles and miles on end, and every couple hours, he sits with us and talks to us, while giving some bread to munch on to recharge our energies. Right now, I do think the father indeed also is disappearing, and soon we will be back into our pristine stage, before the fall of grace. As this stage appears closer and closer, the rusty tools of the father which is no longer there hurts us while we use them and the warmth of the mother we used to know are malformed, turning us just into animals - pigeon born in a nest of eagles that must jump quickly from such nest. This jumping from the nest scenario, would mean that society as we know it indeed, will crumble and that this brings two options in regards of the Patriarchal and Matriarchal vision which would be either narcissism or cooperation between the sexes; matriarchy and patriarchy either synergize each other or we form an androgynous Chimera between both. The former would be something quite new, while the other has been seen from time and time again in Shamanic cultures as "Shamans", but they never mention that this sages were crippled often with mental illnesses as well as physical ones, so I really doubt this will be the road we are taking if humanity is meant to proliferate. Great video as always, Walter. I'm glad there are people like you making such content.

Sexual Personae is a masterpiece

Interesting theory, though what were men in the neolithic period? If women were connected, part or at one with nature, as Paglia says. There was nothing else in the neolithic but nature. So men could only be part of nature too. I get the idea of the large women figures representing abundance and fertility. But do you really think people in that era were unable to deduce that a man and woman having sex resulted in a woman becoming pregnant. Even if they lived a very isolated life, people will have observed the animals around them mating, and then soon after, even if weeks, the female will look pregnant, resulting in young being born. Humans will have noticed how a child born to a woman could often have similar appearance to a male in the group, ie the father. Ok there may be some cultures that put it down to magical powers. But you cant say all neolithic powers did.

The g in Paglia is silent. As in Pagliacci

Sexual Personae is a beautiful synthesis of Nietzsche, Jung and Erich Neumann.

So Apollo is Chuck D, and Dionysus is Flave.

what song is playing at the end of the video?

The fact that we wear masks and act out roles has fuck all to do with our 'true hidden identity'. Any Dungeons and Dragons player can tell you this. Guys love to play girls, girls love to play guys, tall people play short people, etc. We also sometimes self insert too. It's fun, but just because we roleplay as these things doesn't mean we're exploring ourselves or some shit. This is a case of an academic attributing something too much importance due to real life inexperience.

On the note of men existing in a state of subconsciously “resenting” having come from woman and using culture as a surrogate for natural creation/birth, I find it very interesting how most transgender women I’ve met have been immensely preoccupied with the arts or otherwise some form of creative output, particularly music. I also found Jung’s thoughts on the anima and animus very eye opening as far as masculine and feminine energy and the creative impulse, and how these forces manifest when running amok. If you really want to get based about it, you could also relate it to certain things Uncle Ted talks about, especially regarding their brief issues with gender identity. Just a thought.

Love Paglia! Good synopsis of Sexual Persona. It's a tour de force. On another note, Apollo was associated with celibacy? Not in the mythology. He had male and female lovers. In fact, we have the laurel crown as a symbol of victory due to his infatuation and pursuit of Daphne.

Great video 🍷🍇

is it weird how closely the description of Dionysus matches the description of modern day Liberal men?

It took til the end of the video to fully understand her point of view.

Both Apollo and Dionysus are not Greek but Pelasgian(Thracian, Dacian, Getae, Scythian, etc) in origin.

The G is silent bruddah 🤓

Why did you take off the vid called Masculinity Amidst madness. Any particular reason?

i find the differentiation of apollo and dionysus captivating. you could pick out traits from both that resemble our crumbling western world and pick out the opposite that resembles something akin to the mongol horde. Our civilisation being fascist, democratic mob rule, tyrannical, wasteful, separatist and new etc. the apollonian and dionysian always merge, it only depends how they merge whether or not it can be considered good.

Fascinating video! I personally haven´t read Paglia sadly. But can I reuploaded this video on my channel and link your channel on there. I really like your themes and support your work with my abo.

Please learn to pronounce her name properly. It has only 2 syllables not 3. The G is silent. Thus giving either: PALL-YA, in that hard A, strident, nasally American accent; or PAHL-YA in the softer British tone; or PUL-YA in the Euro-Italian accent.

Interesting, have you read Nietzsche on Apollo and Dionysius? Apollonian art is the apex, whil Dionysian is either on the come up or the come down of culture.

Nice work. Joesph Campell had a similar concept, from the seeded earth to the Celestial lights. And was The Birth of Tragedy a great influence on Pagila?

Wow! Just Wow! Thank You!

Where has Paglia been for the past 6 years???

Hmm why would we have a male god to represent women? Women's deity should have been Gaia (goddess of Earth) and men's deity should have been Uranus (god of the sky).

A few points, no one knows the significance of the Venus statuettes. Any explanation for them is projection. They may not be religious or important at all. Saying that women are like nature because they’re fertile is extremely simplistic. Nature is feminine because women are cyclical yet their moods change every day based on their hormones. Women are chaotic yet also nurturing. Only someone who has never hunted would think that natures cycles only mattered because of agriculture. Prey moves with the seasons. The people making such claims have never been in nature. Paleolithic and Neolithic Europeans were genocided by our sky father worshiping ancestors who weren’t agriculturalists, they were pastoralists who kept cattle. The Germanic people still didn’t practice agriculture in the Roman period according to Tacitus. Anyone who has spent time with nature knows that mating causes children. Modern anthropologists comparing our ancestors with 75IQ modern primitive tribes leads to a bunch of false conclusions.

Yay great video

“He contributes 9 minutes” psssh who do u think I am? Johnny sins?!

Very nice. Impressive.

What is the footage used from 1:07

The more fascinating question is how genetics can program in such distinct behaviors like mating and the rituals associated therewith. Nobody "teaches" birds their complex courting routines, they "just know it" from birth in the same way certain breeds of dogs "point", "retrieve", "go to ground"(terrier) and "heel". Nurturing is nice, but how you respond to it is entirely genetic. Welcome to our Brave New World....

I’d like to see her whole talk

Fantastic video essay, thank you.

I am finding this video very interesting. However, Ms. Paglia has made at least two incorrect assertions in her reasoning. First, people did not live in "a constant state of threatened famine." This is a very old 19th century notion of "primitive life" being "nasty brutish and short." From much more recent evidence of hunter gatherer societies, we know that people had very sophisticated knowledge of their environment and thus the ability to thrive within it. Medieval agriculturalists had short and relatively unhealthy lives. But that is not the evidence of hunter gatherers. Second, the idea that people did not know that sexual intercourse resulted in pregnancy is just patently inaccurate and has long been discredited among anthropologists. Remember that it isn't only female fertility images that we have but many, many phallic images as well. People watched animals and it does not take long to figure it out. In short, Paglia is still subscribing to the "ignorant primitives," abandoned long ago by anthropologists and others who study such things.

This is probably wrong, as Dionysus in his plays acts as an aristocrat, despises lower birth and Nietzsche calls him a philosopher. He is related to affirmation of life.

Fantastic work man.

Italic Pagan Vestal Virginitaw Inspections every day!

Nine minutes?!! Hey! Slow your roll. Who do you think I am? Superman? 😄

Love me Paglia, simple as

Feminism, in an attempt to do away with gender, has forgotten that there are natural inherent differences between men and women. Camille is pushing back on this to make feminism more realistic about gender. Ironically, it's an androgynous person pushing back at the deconstruction of gender.

New Russell Walter kino just dropped

Quality essay Walter.

I wish I could talk to Camille Paglia one day. I disagree with some things. Men seem to be more innovative than women (which is a Dionysian quality). Women are less utilitarian, less logical and less innovative, whereas men are more technological, less emotional and less artistic.

This seems to be a bit of having an idea and then explaining everything through it. Even monkey societies seems to understand on some level the relationship between sex and birth. If you have a woman that you put away from men it will become quite apparent when she never gives birth. Or if you even just think about it that the man is entering where the baby is coming from. All of these are very basic observation, that would be very difficult to miss. So yeah, I don't know how much I can buy the idea that at some most humans didn't on some level understand this.

Camille seems to have disappeared. Where did she go?