Perhaps the one conceivable benefit of the current assault on Western culture from among its ostensible conservators is that we are forced to reflect upon what it is and why it is worth conserving. And make no mis¬take, we are not confronting merely an urge to modify or expand the canon, or an argu¬ment over criteria for the admission of au¬thors and titles to the curriculum, much less over the inclusion or exclusion of this or that particular work. What is at stake is whether a hierarchy of works can be established at all, whether rational (and hence just) norms for determining intellectual, moral, and aesthetic excellence are possible. . . .