Rock and roll music - the music of freedom frightens people and unleashes all manner of conservative defense mechanisms.

Rushdie frames rock and roll as more than entertainment: it is a cultural force associated with personal liberty, sexual and social transgression, and the breaking of inherited hierarchies. In this view, the music’s energy and hybridity threaten those invested in order, tradition, or moral regulation, prompting “conservative defense mechanisms” such as censorship, moral panic, or nostalgic calls for restraint. The quote also fits Rushdie’s broader preoccupation with how art and popular culture unsettle orthodoxies—political, religious, or social—and how fear of freedom often disguises itself as a defense of decency or stability.