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Title: Poisonous
Review: Here is McWhorter's argument supporting the superiority of, effectively, all art:Look at this passage of Longfellow! Listen to this Mozart aria! They just -- well -- SOUND so much better!If you don't believe me, you can certainly make an effort to read this, but isn't really worth it. (Sorry John, but your prose ain't stunning either.)This is the work of a cultural elitist, a rabid defender of the Western canon and opponent of artistic progress: the sort of guy who will wax poetic all day about Beethoven and Bach and Dante and Milton, but refuse to acknowledge the artistic legitimacy of Ives or Ligeti or Joyce or Nabokov.On the other hand, if sipping wine and listening to Handel's "Water Music" while discussing the same 4 Shakespeare plays every weekend is your idea of culture, then you've found your guy----but it probably still won't be a very interesting read.
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