The concept of privacy, however muddled, has pervasive reach, psychological no less than legal. Contemporary students make their own distinctive claim to privacy. A sophomore’s mind is his castle. It is fortified against discomfort by the activist and agnostic pretentions of his tutors. The private bastion of his personal thoughts and feelings is a sacred zone. It deserves protection from siege by any exterior reality. Fallen angels boasted as much:

A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

Clinton is hardly the lone driver of descent into absurdist denial of objective truth. But he serves as a walking emblem of it. In terms of cultural legacy, the determining act of Clinton’s tenure was his testimony to a grand jury that he was not lying when he swore “there is nothing going on” between himself and his 22- year-old intern: It depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is.

The president of the United States bore witness before a watching world that there is no objective reality; no truth exists beyond one’s particular perception of it. His rationalization prompted admiration from Timothy Noah in Salon: “Bill Clinton really is a guy who’s willing to think carefully about ‘what the meaning of the word “is” is.’ This is way beyond slick. Perhaps we should start calling him, ‘Existential Willie.’”