One Man's Meat

[s~Z]

>From George F. Will
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/29/047l-092999-idx.html

Down from the academy has trickled the poison of
postmodernism, defined by a non sequitur: Knowledge is
conditioned in complex ways by the contexts in which
facts are encountered. Therefore facts hardly matter, only
interpretations are real. Regarding literature,
postmodernism elevates the critic over the author, whose
meaning the critic does not merely discover, he creates
it. Regarding history, postmodernism invests the
historian with the heroism of an artist, creating reality
rather than fulfilling the mundane role of describer and
interpreter of reality. Facts are dissolved by the radical
indeterminacy of our relationship to reality. Thus a
biographer can sever the tether that ties him -- how
tiresome -- to his subject, and can strut to center stage.