America in 2000

[Scylla]

Yesterday Tom Wolfe’s new book Hooking Up was released.

From the first essay “What life was like at the turn of the second millenium: An American’s World”

American superiority in all matters of science, economics, industry, politics, business, medicine, engineering, social life, social justice, and, of course, the military was total and indisputable…

…But, above all, there was the curious case of American philosophy – which no longer existed. It was as if Emerson, Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey had never lived. The reigning doctrine was deconstruction, whose heirophants were two Frenchmen, Michel Focault and Jacques Derrida. They began with a hyperdilation of a pronouncement of Neitzsche’s to the effect that there can be no absolute truth, merely many “truths,” which are the tools of various groups, classes, or forces. From this, the deconstructionists proceeded to the doctrine that language is the most insidious tool of all. The philosophers duty was to deconstruct the language, expose its hidden agendas, and help save the victims of the American “Establishment”: women, the poor, nonwhites, homosexuals, and hardwood trees.

Oddly, when deconstructionists required appendectomies or bypass surgery or even a root-canal job, they never deconstructed medical or dental “truth,” but went along with whatever their board-certified, profit-oriented surgeons proclaimed was the last word.

I’m so glad somebody said it better than I ever could.