Having read Vollmann in the past, I read this review with relish and was not disappointed.

What struck me most:

Vollmann writes of himself having a "positive fetish about equality" but is described by the reviewer as "make[ing] quite a show of refusing to ‘come out against’ the gender apartheid of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan because some charismatic old tribal patriarch once explained to him that Muslim men show how much they 'cherish' and 'respect' their women by keeping them locked up safe at home."

That is the hypocrisy of multiculturalism laid bare: the failure to hold certain cultural or religious traditions to the standard of critical assessment applied to other groups. Particularly in Europe that is the cancer eating away at the intellectual and political underpinnings of society (and a reason I left).

This is seen most pointedly in persons who savage Christianity both on theological and political levels and yet make endless apologetics for Islam as misunderstood, oppressed by ‘racism’, manipulated by external agents (e.g. Israel, George Bush, Wahabbis), due some innate respect (because it has lots of followers apparently?), etc. It is a trans-Atlantic phenomenon and disturbs me because it comes from the minds of otherwise educated, intelligent people.

All this occurs especially it seems when influenced by personal relationships (‘well, I have friends from Lebannon…’) or a more general, romanticized and/or politicized notions of the other (a.k.a. ‘any enemy of Western hegemony and crass materialism must be good, right?’). Vollmann succumbs to the former and it was refreshing to see Laura Miller call him out on it in the pages of Salon no less. Now if Salon only addressed the later issue more for the sake of liberalism's future.

***

But let me just get this straight, Vollmann has a young daughter and yet globe-trots from Thailand to Nairobi to Russia while often pursuing paid sex? The perversity of that combination alone probably equals anything written in his book.

Alex O'Neal: "Stephen Gould, possibly the pre-eminent Darwin scholar of the 20th century, laid it to rest along with many others."

What is it with some liberals and references to the opinions of Stephen J. Gould? I regularly see Gould's statement on "Non-Overlapping Magisteria" (i.e. religion and science being investigations into separate realms) invoked like holy writ by certain liberals uncomfortable with the messy, un-PC business of applying reason and evidence-based criticism to religious beliefs.

The guy was arguably "the pre-eminent Darwin scholar of the 20th century" in some people's minds because of his (self?) promotion in the mainstream media, meaning he was palatable to church-going middle-Americans.

I was not trying to make ann implied comment about you at all and apologize if you took it that way. It was just your bringing up Gould as you did sparked a broad comment based on past instances (including here at Salon) where I have seen Gould "invoked" as I put it in order to rationalize giving religion a pass from critical analysis. I am agnostic too, do not discount the possibility of an immaterial aspect to existence, but feel that suitable theories can only be formed through scientific inquiry into immaterial phenomena throught the material ways they (seemingly) manifest themselves.