Demolition derby ...

... Anthony Daniels on John Carey: The higher destruction.

This is particularly interesting:

Lord Curzon, who was by no means a marginal figure, made a speech to the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1900, in which he said:

If there be any one who says to me that there is no duty devolving upon a Christian Government to preserve the monuments of pagan art or the sanctuaries of an alien faith, I cannot pause to argue with such a man. Art and beauty, and the reverence that is owing to all that has evoked human genius or has inspired human faith, are independent of creeds, and, in so far as they touch the sphere of religion, are embraced by the common religion of all mankind. Viewed from this standpoint, the rock temple of the Brahmans stands on precisely the same footing as the Buddhist Vihara, and the Mohammedan Musjid as the Christian Cathedral… . To us the relics of Hindu and Mohammedan, of Buddhist, Brahmin, and Jain are, from the antiquarian, the historical, and the artistic point of view, equally interesting and equally sacred. One does not excite a more vivid and the other a weaker emotion. Each represents the glories or the faith of a branch of the human family. Each fills a chapter in Indian history.

It is surely an irony of history that an imperialist of a century ago should exhibit infinitely more sensitivity, enlightenment, open-mindedness, and genuine cultivation than a contemporary professor of literature at Oxford.