I believe the author is taking issue with the notion that "the truth will out" in the marketplace of ideas.
In this I sympathize with Fish. It is as though the truth's-being-out was some final result, rather than merely an ephemeral change in constantly changing cultural winds. This smacks of the happily-ever-after narrative to which America so frequently retreats, having not as a culture experienced any evidence to the contrary since the Civil War (perhaps none ever, since even then, righteousness prevailed, no?).
Even if the inconvenient truth is for a period (we cannot say "finally") adopted as the social consensus, what of the damage done in the meantime?
Comments
I believe the author is taking issue with the notion that "the truth will out" in the marketplace of ideas.
In this I sympathize with Fish. It is as though the truth's-being-out was some final result, rather than merely an ephemeral change in constantly changing cultural winds. This smacks of the happily-ever-after narrative to which America so frequently retreats, having not as a culture experienced any evidence to the contrary since the Civil War (perhaps none ever, since even then, righteousness prevailed, no?).
Even if the inconvenient truth is for a period (we cannot say "finally") adopted as the social consensus, what of the damage done in the meantime?