In 1987, a conservative philosophy professor named Allan Bloom published a surprise bestseller about American higher education, “The Closing of the American Mind.” The big problem at universities wasn't racism or sexism, Bloom argued, but relativism.

"There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative," Bloom wrote.

You don't have to buy everything in Bloom's book — including his notorious dismissal of rock music — to see that he was on to something. My students are more reluctant than ever to make strong assertions about reality. Some students have even told me that they doubt such a thing exists. There's no singular reality — there's just "your reality," and "my reality," and everybody else's.

For years, I have warned them that one cannot have a democracy on that premise. If there is no fixed truth, the people with the most power will define it for us, and we will have no solid ground for contesting them.

Welcome to the United States under President Trump.

The problem is not just that Trump lies. It is that he has eroded the very idea of truth. It doesn't matter........

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