Bernard Chapin has published his interview with Roger Scruton, author of the new book, Culture Counts: Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged. I thought the following quite on target:
BC: In the hopes of helping young minds combat cultural relativism and postmodernism, can you explain to us why we should study some writers over others? Why is Shakespeare a more important writer than Toni Morrison? How would you answer the question, “Who is to say which work is better than another?”
RS: Shakespeare is a more important writer than Toni Morrison because he presents a vaster array of believable characters, in strange situations brilliantly evoked, which put them to the test in ways that illustrate and command sympathy for the human condition. The question 'who is to say what work is better than another?' is easily answered: the one with good judgment. How is good judgment acquired? By studying the canon and making comparisons.
Another excerpt:
BC: What does it mean to embrace the contemplative life? What does one’s doing so amount to in practice?
RS: It means allowing one's opinions to be shaped by truth, rather than the wish to believe. It means allowing one's actions to be shaped by virtue, rather self-interest; it means allowing one's emotions to be founded in acceptance of the world and the willing affirmation of the right of others to be.
Another:
BC: At this point in time, has emotion completely triumphed over reason in the public square? If so, what effects has it had on our culture?
RS: No, emotion has not triumphed over reason in the public square. What passes for emotion is a kind of cold-hearted hysteria, typified by pornography and its addicts. Properly understood emotion is part of the rational life - the part concerned with love and hate, affirmation and denial.
And this:
BC: For what reason would you characterize our culture as being a nihilistic one? What are its most negating attributes?
RS: Nihilism does not mean believing in nothing. It means believing in Nothing. And that in turn means being launched, like Mephistopheles, on a path of negation. Nihilism searches out what is positive and creative and places a negation sign in front of it - as pornography places a negation sign in front of sexual love, as rap music places a negation sign in front of growing up, as... you can fill in the gaps.