Re comment 4 "I recommend John Carey's 'What Good are the Arts?' - which makes a compelling case for aesthetic relativism. One person can get the same thrill out of Kylie Minogue's music as another can get from Wagner's operas. High-brow art and low-brow art are just subjective social constructions."

Rubbish! Have a look at what our respected leader, Dawkins, says about relativism. The person whose musical taste aspires to nothing better than Kylie Minogue, simply has inferior aesthetic judgement. Before you say I'm being non-PC, consider - most of us here are materialists, believing that our identity resides in our brain. We regularly accuse whole swathes of the human race of being pig-ignorant and stupid, and it's true. If it's acceptable to say people's intelligence is inferior, why is it unacceptable to say their aesthetic judgement (which resides in the same brain) is inferior? Besides, where does this relativism stop? Is the sports page of the Sun literature, no worse or better than Tolstoy? Speaking for myself, I love trashy movies - the kind that's "so bad it's fun". I enjoy them, but I know damn well they ARE trashy.