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A few years ago Americans were willing to listen to a president discuss the meaning of "is" as [if] he were at a Modern Language Association meeting. September 11 showed us the face of pure evil. Our nation has seen the enemy plainly, and that vision may be the beginning of the end of postmodernism in America. It is no coincidence that the places in America which have been the most reluctant to call al Qaeda evil have been the places where postmodernism is strongest.
The rest of America has, happily, finally mustered the self-confidence to stand up to this form of radical nihilism.
We will continue to debate the nature of language and of the subatomic, and we will continue to tolerate and celebrate diverse cultures. We can do all of these things without teaching college students (including foreign students who may one day rule their homeland) that living as a serf under the tyranny of Wahhabis, Nazis, or Stalinists is more authentically human than living as a free American.
George Bush is our first post-postmodern president. He can't tell Heisenberg from Heidegger but, unlike them, he can tell right from wrong:
["]It is always and everywhere wrong to target and kill the innocent. It is always and everywhere wrong to be cruel and hateful, to enslave and oppress. It is always and everywhere right to be kind and just, to protect the lives of others, and to lay down your life for a friend.["]

Postmodernism is on its way to the ash heap of history.

beckett, I finally had a chance to go read some Glenn Reynolds at the INSTAPUNDIT site you linked me to above. What a great find!

WRT the above italics: Hopeful signs, indeed. There may well be a "silver lining" in the tragic horror of 9-11 and its sequelae now unfolding in the Middle East. The President gives every indication of firmly possessing a moral center, a moral vision that is sorely needed in the world right now. In today's world, that's like having a target pinned to your backside, or a "kick-me" sign. But I'll put my money on him, and not on the raving postmodernist lunatics who hate the West and all it stands for. (I thought his characterization of Osama bin Laden as a "postmodernist" rather than as some kind of atavistic, pre-modernist "savage" was fascinating....)

Thanks so much for pointing me to a great website -- and a very fine thinker in Glenn Reynolds. All my very best -- bb.