ABSTRACT
The American role in world affairs has always been in large measure determined by domestic conditions, not just economic and political ones but intellectual and cultural ones, too. The rejection of the pains of modernity is not the only way to explain the alienation of intellectuals that is behind their postmodernist, multiculturalist hostility to science. By attacking science and suggesting that multiculturalist, or Afrocentrist, or feminist versions of "science" are no less authentic, postmodernist intellectual relativism helps to perpetuate the scientific illiteracy of black students and all students. The embrace of far-reaching moral-intellectual relativism has profound consequences for the life of the mind. The eclipse of moral certainties and the crusade against reason are at the core of the first aspect of decadence; it is associated with lack of purpose, and a moral relativism unchecked by sustaining and widely shared values or beliefs.
