To the editors:
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This review makes the Reader look terrible. Paglia makes a good, all-out attack on your core views (views you never expose to scrutiny in editorials, but which you work in between the lines in half your first section articles). This is a good chance for you to defend yourself, and you have nothing to offer but personal attacks on her character.
The worst thing to do is simply launch a vituperative attack with no defense of yourself. This looks awful–as if you feel so cocky and sanctimonious that no one could possibly entertain doubts about your core beliefs. Is this really your position? Has intellectual history come to an end with the (unstated) editorial positions of the Chicago Reader? Is there nothing more to discuss or debate? Are your critics motivated solely by evil designs or psychological problems?
