After another two months of not posting, I am again looking for an outlet for procrastination and wrath, so I turn to a page which no one will ever read. As a rule, I am disdainful of post-modernism as the epitome of intellectual bankruptcy and laziness, and am positively nauseous when it is applied to any field outside of the arts (the thought of it made me throw up in my mouth a little just there.) I am especially perturbed when it is broadly applied to the ideal of a pleuralistic or multicultrual society, with the conclusion that not only are all cultures/cultural values equally legitimate, but that we must embrace and adopt all aspects of every culture in a pleuralistic society. Recent events throughout the world, specifically the protests in the middle east against the nordic nations, have thrown this into sharp relief. I was overjoyed when I saw this essay by Ibn Warraq (http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,398853,00.html) the traditional psuedonym of an Islamic dissident, and in this case the voice of a muslim immigrant to the US from Pakistan. He/she hits the nail on the head, as far as I'm concerned: cultural relativism is NOT the path of a pleuralistic society, tolerance is.