Truth Café

Mark Linville on the Campus Coffee Shop as the First Casualty of Relativism

It is sometimes said that ours is the postmodern age, and this is often taken to mean that civilization has outgrown the benighted and oppressive notion that there is such a thing as truth. Visit a major university campus (and stray far enough from the science buildings) and the relativists may be seen grazing in "immence herds," as the orthographically challenged explorer Meriwether Lewis might have put it.

Eavesdrop in a campus coffee house (especially the one closest to the Religious Studies department) and you may pick up snippets of conversation confirming the identity of the species. "But truth is merely a social construct, tethered to our linguistic practices," insists one. "All metanarratives are transparent attempts at political domination and oppression and must be deconstructed!" exclaims another. "Truth is whatever our colleagues will allow us to get away with saying," declares a third.