Skip to content

Ellen Willis Quotes

1941–2006 United States

Ellen Willis (December 14 1941 – November 9 2006) was an American essayist and critic. She was director of the cultural journalism program at New York University and co-founder of the feminist group Redstockings.

United States
Critics
Feminists
Journalists

Also known as: Willis, Ellen

Random Ellen Willis quote

44 quotes

Ideally, a sexual relation ought to create a satisfying tension between the two modes (a baroque idea, particularly if the tension is ironic) or else blend them so well that the distinction disappears (a classical aspiration).

To say that historical conditions made personal life possible, and with it the self-consciousness that allowed psychoanalysis to emerge, is to tell half the story: one also has to consider that the erotic impulse, ever pressing for satisfaction, had something to do with making the history that encouraged its expression.

A triumphalist corporate capitalism, free at last of the specter of Communism, has mobilized its economic power to relentlessly marginalize all nonmarket values; to subordinate every aspect of American life to corporate "efficiency" and the bottom line; to demonize not only government but the very idea of public service and public goods.

Art that succeeds manages to evade or transcend or turn to its own purposes the strictures imposed on the artist; on the deepest level it is the enemy of authority, as Plato understood. Mass art is no exception.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Ellen Willis (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.