Mizzou is what happens when we allow too much privacy

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:

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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.’”

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