ABSTRACT
One common charge is that the new theories and methods now so prevalent in the humanities and social sciences are somehow intellectually irresponsible, even faddish, deviations from such timeless norms as "The Tradition." In his book Illiberal Education , D'Souza states that "new forms of criticism" generate "an intellectual free fall" which "directly undermine[s] the notion that traditional academic criteria have any validity." Demographic changes in undergraduate and graduate schools are probably the most easy to identify. Since World War II women, people of color, children of immigrants, and other previously marginalized groups—including Jews, working-class children, and people who are openly gay—have entered the classrooms and the professions. Formerly self-evident distinctions between good and bad, high and low began to look more and more suspicious. The signifier "tree" works as part of a sign because it is different from "free," "three," "tray," "brie," "trip," and so on.
