Postmodernism vs. principle

The renowned essayist Christopher Hitchens delivered a spirited barrage of arrows in the direction of those "easily offended fascists" for whom "everything that is not absolutely compulsory is absolutely forbidden." A solitary clap rang out from Alumni Hall.\n"A rather tentative beginning to the defense of civilization," Hitchens replied. \nFor roughly the next two hours Wednesday night, Hitchens, drawing heavily from the life and writing of George Orwell, supplied a heavy arsenal for that defense. Orwell's salutary example conveys a two-part lesson. First, that language offers, to those who will listen and speak and think for themselves, the enunciation of truth. In this, Orwell was an early opponent of the postmodern school, which denies the existence of objective truth. \nSecond is the "power of facing unpleasant facts," as Orwell put it. What this implies is a certain moral muscle, in that one both refuses others' lies and accepts for oneself the consequences of telling the truth. That kind of personal responsibility is out of fashion in our epoch of relativistic arguments. If those who idly "speak out" in cocktail chatter wish to give the impression that they do not care for the truth, then by abjuring serious criticism they are well on their way to succeeding.\nSo instead of citing events to vindicate his own opinions, Orwell preferred to anticipate them by crafting his own views after considerable investigation. This is known as intellectual honesty. And rather than playing the role of a spectator in the cinema (passively willing to applaud goodness but not actively eager to fight for it), better, he thought, to be in the arena. And this has been called moral integrity. These are the habits that go to make up what Hitchens called the "antibodies to totalitarianism." \nSuch individuals as Orwell and Hitchens tend to sustain plenty of blows to their armor. A striking fact about those blows -- because of the hard and dignified manner in which they are acquired -- is that they leave the armor no worse for wear. Hitchens remains a front-line fighter in the moral confrontations of our times to such an extent that his eulogy, to quote Homer, might one day plausibly read: "A joy to friends, a woe to enemies." He would have it no other way. And as a chronicler, as well as a comrade of his (both of which I can now fairly assert), neither would I.\nThis brings us back to where we began, with the defense of civilization. This mission is appropriately seated at the university and requires that we move past subjective 'views' into the realm of fact -- or 'truth,' as people used to say. Only by acquiring that kind of perspective will we be adequately armed to meet the challenges that our way of life will always arouse. And, truth be told, only then will we have gathered an arsenal on which we can honorably depend in times of danger, and, thus, never be forced to desert except in dishonor.