The Age of Consent

I just finished reading The Age of Consent: The Rise of Relativism and the Corruption of Popular Culture by Robert H. Knight. As a long-time anti-relativist, I have to say this is a great place to begin if you are interested in the subject.

Knight does a great job of chronicling the history of relativism in popular culture, from Wagner to "Married with Children", especially focusing on the decline since the early 1970's. While often the pace is a bit brisk, Knight is able to hit the high (and low) points of the decline. The book tends to dwell on the symptoms of the decay: the propaganda of television, movies, music, the sexual revolution and art in general. Knight argues that the main agents of relativism are homosexual, feminist and New Age activists, who work to promote a "value-free" society. While Knight makes no specific suggestions on how to combat the problem, his final chapter is a laundry list of positive steps that have been made against relativism in popular culture.

On the negative side, I would have enjoyed a deeper explanation of what Knight though relativism really was. He makes a pretty good go of it, giving the reader (just?) enough insight into the relativists mindset to tell his story. I would have enjoyed a deeper explanation of the title. How exactly does "consent" play out in the corruption of popular culture? In all fairness, Knight is not trying to write a philosophical rebuttal to relativism, rather he assumes the reader already agrees that relativism is a corruptive force and then proceeds to highlight its common manifestations in a historical context.