Has High Culture Faked The Truth?

“The life of the mind has its intrinsic methods and rewards. It is concerned with the true, the beautiful and the good, which between them define the scope of reasoning and the goals of serious enquiry. But each of those goals can be faked, and one of the most interesting developments in our educational and cultural institutions over the past half century is the extent to which fake culture and fake scholarship have driven out the true varieties. It is important to ask why.”

Why Were So Many People Upset About Philip Roth Retiring?

Morgan Meis suggests that famous artists at the top of their professions serve, in a secularized and educated society, as something like patron saints. And saints aren’t supposed to retire. “Imagine Mother Theresa suddenly announcing that she was done with her work and would spend the last few years of her life vacationing in the Caribbean.”

New Literary Food Fight: Salman Rushdie Vs. Pankaj Mishra Over Mo Yan’s Patsyhood

Part 1: Rushdie joins chorus of criticism over Mo’s Nobel Prize, calling him “a patsy of the [Chinese] regime.” Part 2: Mishra, mentioning Rushdie among other writers, argues that writers criticizing Mo should look at their own governments’ faults before condemning Mo’s accommodation with China’s government. Part 3: Rushdie retorts, “It is not for Mishra to tell me not to criticise Mo Yan.”