In The Pleasure Police, David Shaw, media critic for the Los Angeles Times, fires off a joyous libertarian rant in which he attacks the neo Puritan culture seeking to eliminate traditional vices such as sex, dirty words, liquor, and high-calorie food.
You can make a strong case that we are safer and healthier without any of these traditional pleasures and a lot of people do. But the result of such a politically correct, sensitive, health-conscious culture can be, as Shaw's book points out, a humorless and self-righteous environment in which we are all continuously being scolded by what he calls the "Pleasure Police."
Shaw, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning critic, thinks we ought to lighten up. While acknowledging health, sexism, and other concerns, he is skeptical that some vices are as dangerous as they are made out to be, or that they need to be purged from our culture as thoroughly as they have been in recent years. Shaw's contrarian and free-spirited discussion is a valuable reminder. As for moral guardians, censors, and PC warriors, he offers these words: "May God have (some) mercy on their miserable fucking souls."
Jon Katz
The Pleasure Police: How Bluenose Busybodies and Lily-Livered Alarmists Are Taking All the Fun out of Life, by David Shaw: US$23. Doubleday: (800) 323 9872, +1 (212) 354 6500, on the Web at www.bdd.com/.
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