Letter: Judge fairly

ANDREW MARR (Section 2, 29 March) postulates "an irrefutable hierarchy" in cultural matters. Such axioms are difficult to refute because they are exempt from the burden of rational proof. While it is difficult to imagine how anyone could hold meaningful cultural values without some sense of hierarchy, surely the "relativism" Marr attacks involves no more than the recognition that comparing Beethoven with Bob Dylan is not very useful or appropriate. What he terms "the denial of intellectual and artistic measurement" is in fact the rejection of measurement by a simplistic universal standard.

David Ronder

London N22