Essential Reading
Anyone in the business or hobby of self-expression, rhetoric, disputation — or anyone with the habit of observing those practices — must read Stephen Cox’s timeless essay, “Fruitless Controversies.” It is profound, useful, and deeply funny. Never more so to me than when I read it for the third time a few days ago, and wiggled from pleasure. As should you, if you’ve ever been in an argument before or plan to enter one again.
Thank God Liberty Magazine has it available in full on its website.
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Supersized sympathies are a crucial element of Camille Paglia’s distinct charm, and they are employed once again in her adapted lecture on “Religion and the Arts in America” for Arion, which can now be read online.
Her latest monthly riff-column for Salon is also available today. It remains the only column in which Ann Coulter, Howlin’ Wolf, and Jean Cocteau’s “Orphee” can make it under the same headline.
