The National Catholic Review  O.K., post-Christian (we’ve read
our Nietzsche), postmodern (the MLA insists on it), postcolonial
(goes without saying), post-structuralist (ho-hum)but post-
cultural? Can Christopher Clausen, an English professor at Penn
State, be serious? Indeed he can. First, assume that culture in
the old sense of a more or less rigid, coherent set of norms and
customs that wall off insiders from outsiders (cf. the Navajo
name for themselves, Dineh, "people," implying that non-Navajos
are...God knows what) has been rapidly breaking down in the
centrifugal whirl of money-, media- and youth-dominated America.
Next, assume that we’re setting the pace for the rest of the
planet (though visions of a plasticized "McWorld" are
premature). Finally, assume that a lot of the talk about
multiculturalism is mere nostalgia (the Sons of Italy, the
United Daughters of the Confederacy) or decorative fluff
(Kwanzaa). To be genuinely multicultural would be like riding
more than one horse at oncea rare and stren