EDUCATION 101 FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

"But, again, it's a lack of perspective here. Every trauma that young people suffer can in the long run be very creative. The people in my high school who were the successful ones, who were the blonde WASP sorority queens/kings and all that... they didn't do anything with their lives. They peaked early. They were like magnificent gods and goddesses, what happened to them?" Paglia asks. "The people who were the misfits, the fire was in their belly because they were constantly being harassed or whatever. The people who were the misfits in the long run have this impulse to achieve. Look at Sandra Bernhard, the only Jew in Arizona apparently, as far as we know. Even Madonna. This impulse, energy to develop yourself and your talents is coming from maladjustment. That discourse has got to be brought back into this.

-Camille Paglia