My first thought when I read Thomas McArdle’s Article in The Stream entitled Deconstruction is that the subject of the article, an academic named Paul de Man, would have been a worthy addition to Paul Johnson’s book Intellectuals. Kelly, Christian and I all read Intellectuals as part of our homeschool efforts. The book profiles some famous thought “leaders” such as who with few, if any, exceptions felt they, in the words of a commenter at Amazon, held themselves “as having a special capacity to determine proper behavior and beliefs and to use this capacity to enlighten their neighbors” at the same time they lived decadent and tawdry personal lives.

Actually, the article in The Stream is about a biographical play about Paul de Man, a Nazi sympathizer. He is introduced this way in the article:

The Antwerp-born Paul de Man came to America after the Second World War and Blitzkrieged the study of literature by pioneering the postmodern theory of deconstruction — which, among other things, put morally-relativistic modern man in the place of a murdered God.

According to the play, De Man certainly appears to have lived according to his morally-relativistic philosophy, lying about his Nazi sympathies to get the academic positions he wanted, living the exact same decadent and tawdry lives as the bulk of the “intellectuals” described in Paul Johnson’s book. It sounds like a fascinating play. I really would like to see it sometime, but I might just be relegated to reading it. Given the progressive proclivities of the theatric community in our country, it might not be widely performed.