rod mclaughlin

Rushdie's Relativism (19 jan 10)

I just noticed a bookmark I got from Powell's bookstore in Portland, Oregon, has a quote from an interview with Salman Rushdie, the postmodernist author, Spurs supporter, and fugitive. He says

"If I like 'The Simpsons' and I like 'The Iliad', why shouldn't I talk about them in the same sentence?".

Or Hello Kitty and Shakespeare. Or Oasis and Miles Davis. In Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, he parodies relativism mercilessly. He has a trendy postmodernist prof arguing that, if we start classifying art into good and bad, why, next thing we'll be saying some actions are better than others, and it's a short step from that to thinking some people are better than others.

Portland

London