the question of why anybody should remain anything he happens to be to begin with.” Understanding this is necessary to understanding the political anxiety that overtook the United States in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Fascinating though the paradoxes of postmodernism are to intellectuals, they are not principles for living. Most people hate them. If all arguments and narratives were “unstable” or “contingent,” who would take the trouble to learn the facts on which they are based? On what basis would respect for truth rest? On what basis respect for other human beings? Such
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