There have been a lot of advertisements on television about a movie called The Postman . I realized while I was reading this book, that the author is David Brin. I like this guy. And I may actually go see this movie before turn of the century. (I don't keep up with the latest movies too well.)
This book is published by Bantam and copyrighted 1994. Three hundred fifty-seven pages, it's a collection of short stories and essays. I think the essays were commencement speeches. The book gets its title from one of the essays, The Dogma of Otherness , and in so doing explains very clearly the problem I have with the belief that all cultures are equal or that they all have 'equal validity.' I disagree with him that this is primarily an American Phenomenon. I'm not even so sure it's a western phenomenon. I mean the Japanese and Korean 'miracles' didn't happen because they were resistent to foreign ideas. Still, I like his exposition of the Doctrine of Otherness. (I will note, however, that not believing that all cultures are 'equally valid' does not mean believing that one can't learn from all or most cultures.) The problem is that the believers in this doctrine don't see themselves as culture-centric dogmatists. There are actually two questions: 1) Should one learn from all cultures and 2) Are all cultures 'equally valid?' It's not that 'Otherness' is a bad idea, but that it's misused by people who don't understand it very well...philosophical pelf they have inherited from those around them, the underpinnings of which are a mystery to them. This is a common problem with some of those who proselytize multiculturalism. In fact, I think multiculturalism is a very good thing, but it's far from a religious tenet for me.
There are a number of short stories here too. In one of them a boy child starts working in the womb. In another, universes are created. In yet another, he contemplates the 'balance of life,' a common thread in his uplift saga. And there are others. The stories are amusing and thought-provoking, sometimes disturbingly so.
A lively read, but if I had it to do over, I would go through and read all the essays together, then the short stories. I have yet to be disappointed with Brin. I may read the essays again some time soon.
