Wu has been visiting and promoting transsexuality in recent years, claiming that the popularity of human identification-determining the number of male births-is a sign that transgender women are becoming more and more delicate, which indicates that "Western civilization" is on the verge of collapse. In order to support these claims, she fabricated her own elaborate pseudo-history, focusing on ancient Greece and Rome to a great extent.
Unfortunately, Paglia is widely regarded as a serious social critic, especially by the far right, which means that her misjudgment of ancient history has been widely circulated. A few months ago, I published an article about transsexuals in the ancient world, and many people commented on her statement. I don't have time to debunk everything Paglia said about ancient history, so for the purpose of this article, I will focus on what she said in a viral YouTube video.
Paglia's extremely autocratic concept of "civilization"
Before I discuss Paglia's views on the decline of the so-called "western civilization", I think I should discuss her real views on "civilization" first, because her views on "civilization" are, to put it mildly, special.
Paglia's concept of civilization is very, very patriarchal. In the book Sex Roles: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson published by 1990, she claimed that culture, civilization, language, logic, philosophy, science, art, sports and politics are all inherent things of men, which were invented by men to protect themselves from women. She wrote on page nine:
Women are idols of abdominal magic. She seems to be expanding and giving birth according to her own rules. From the beginning, a woman was like an incredible existence. Men respect her, but fear her. She spit him out and tried to swallow him, Darkmouth. Men unite and create culture to resist women's nature. "