In that ideal Republic which is invoked by anyone who writes a criticism of life, Susan Sontag would have no status, since her mind is nourished solely on products of decomposition. Her opportunity depends absolutely on there being a condition of latent anarchy to sanction the impudence with which she defines the condition as admirable…. Miss Sontag has many of the secondary attributes of a professional revolutionary: an irreparable want of humor, a sweeping disregard of the nuances of history, a hatred of elites over which she does not personally preside, a faculty for translating all data into propaganda—and underneath it all, barely concealed, a private thirst to be devoured by something bigger, more forceful and simpler than herself: in her case, an Apocalypse which would nullify forever her compulsive quarrel with the Word.

From first to last, in [Styles of Radical Will], she is preoccupied with...