EDITORrnThomas FlemingrnMANAGING EDITORrnTheodore PappasrnSENIOR EDITOR, BOOKSrnChilton Williamson, jr.rnASSISTANT EDITORrnChristine HaynesrnART DIRECTORrnAnna Mycek-WodeckirnCONTRIBUTING EDITORSrnHarold O./. Brown, Katherine Dalton,rnSamuel Francis, George Garrett,rnE. Christian Kopff, Clyde WilsonrnCORRESPONDING EDITORSrnBill Kauffman, Jacob Neusner,rnJohn Shelton Reed, Momcilo SelicrnEDITORIAL SECRET’RYrnLeann DobbsrnPUBLISHERrnAllan C. CarlsonrnPUBLICATION DIRECTORrnGuy C. ReffettrnCOMPOSITION MANAGERrnAnita FedorarnCIRCULATION MANAGERrnRochelle FrankrnA publication of The Rocklord Institute.rnEditorial and Advertising Offices:rn934 North Mam Street, Rockford, IL 61103.rnEditonal Phone: (815)964-5054.rnAdvertising Phone: (815)964-5811.rnSubscription Department: P.O. Box 800,rnMount Morris, IL 61054. Call 1-800-877-5459.rnFor information on advertising in Chronicles,rnplease call Rochelle Frank at (815) 964-5811.rnU.S.A. Newsstand Distribution by Eastern New?rnDish-ibutors, Inc., 1130 Cleveland Road,rnSandusky, OH 44870.rnCopyright © 1994 by The Rockford Institute.rnyll rights reserved.rnChromcks (ISSN 0887-5731) is publishedrnmonthly for $28 per year by The RockfordrnInstitute, 934 North Main Street, Rockford,rnIL 61103-7061. Second-class postage paidrnat Rockford, IL and additional mailing offices.rnPOSTMASTER: Send address changes tornChromcks, P.O. Box 800, Mount Morns,rnIL 61054.rnThe views expressed in Chronicles are thernauthors’ alone and do not necessarily reflectrnthe views of The Rockford Institute or of itsrndirectors. Unsolicited manuscripts cannot bernreturned unless accompanied by a self-addressedrnstamped envelope.rnChroniclesrnVol. 18, No. 1! November 1994rnPrinted in Ihc United States i)f AmericarnPOLEMICS & EXCHANGESrnOn Stanley FishrnI was dismayed to read in your August issuernthe review by Kenneth R. Craycraft,rnJr., of Stanley Fish’s There’s No SuchrnThing as Free Speech. I have noticedrnlately in certain other “conservative”rnpublications a tendency for some selfstyledrnconservatives to try to derive somernbenefit from so-called “postmodern”rnideas, on the theory, as Craycraft puts it,rnthat “the enemies of our enemies arernour friends, no matter where we findrnthem.” But I had thought that Chroniclesrnat least was safe from this seriousrncorruption. Apparently I was wrong.rnCraycraft seems to think that such individualsrnas Fish—or Jameson, Rorty,rnetc.—have successfully “subverted” (arnfavorite word of theirs) the claims of purernrationality, etc., of the liberals (or whateverrnterm one chooses for the otherrnside). That leaves the ground clear forrnthe rebuilding of religious faith, for example.rnAlas, this analysis makes at leastrnfour serious errors.rnFirst, what Craycraft thinks are caricaturesrnof Fish’s position are actuallyrnmore insightful about deconstructionismrnthan is Craycraft himself. The basicrnunacknowledged premises of this ideologyrnare: first, everything is always political,rnincluding language and literature—rnthis they have cribbed from Marx; and,rnsecond, there is no aspect of truth, in realityrnor in the text, that transcends therncultural context of the writer. Alas, therncaricaturists have been unfair to poorrnFish, who actually upholds truth, accordingrnto Craycraft. He cites a passagernin which Fish states that we can “rely onrntruths that according to our presentrnlights seem indisputable.” Our presentrnlights? Seem indisputable? This is arnclaim that there is, in the last analysis, nornreal truth or no truth that we can reallyrnknow. It is precisely the claim of thernancient Sophists, without one iota ofrnoriginality and with no Socrates or CardinalrnJohn Henry Newman to arguerneffectively against it.rnSecond, the analysis fails to distinguishrnthe soft and hard versions of therndeconstructionist doctrine and then torndetermine which of these is upheld byrnFish. The soft version would be: a writer’srn(or a reader’s) cultural-historical contextrninfluences his view of reality and ofrnany given book he is writing or reading.rnThe hard version: this context inevitablyrnand completely determines his view. Thernsoft version is, of course, true, but trivialrnbecause no one has ever denied it for arnmoment. It allows for an element ofrntranscendence and freedom, which wernintuitively know exists in the remarkablernindividual. The hard version of the doctrinernmight be interesting as far as thernhistory of philosophy is concerned becausernno one appears to have made suchrna total claim before, but it suffers fromrnone little problem: it is manifestly false.rnThus Fish is either trivial or deluded.rnThird, the “interpretive community”rnof which Fish speaks exists in an ontologicalrnand epistemological vacuum, givenrnhis belief that truth issues from thisrncommunity. Craycraft, somewhat pathetically,rnembraces this aspect of Fish’srntheory because it undoubtedly remindsrnhim of the Church as interpretive communityrnand therefore acts as a counterweightrnto the excessive individualism ofrnliberalism. The Church is a communityrnin which inheres the Holy Spirit, one ofrnthe three persons of the Trinity. It isrntherefore the vessel of the highest immutablerntruths, those of God. But ofrncourse Craycraft, being a theologian, hasrntaken Theology 101 and already knowsrnthis. Fish, by contrast, considers all interpretiverncommunities as equal and asrngenerators of meaning rather than recipientsrnof transcendent meaning. Arrogantly,rnhe states that he personally hasrnnot received revelation and so cannotrnaccept it. Does this give comfort tornCraycraft in his acceptance of Fish as arnchampion of the struggle against individualism?rnActually, conservatives mustrnalways uphold a robust individualism inrnthe context of acceptance of a higherrnmoral code that constrains destructivernbehavior. Fish is anarchic in his impulses;rnfor this reason, as C.S. Lewisrnmight put it, he is attacking liberalismrnfrom below, not from above.rnFourth, Craycraft simply misses thernoutright evil in Fish. Admittedly, this isrnsomething hard to discern. Fish’s sarcastic,rnsneering attitude is a mask for anrnunderlying rage and will to power. Perhapsrneasier to understand for Craycraftrnwould be Fish’s secret campaign to persuadernthe provost of Duke to block thernappointment of any faculty who werernmembers of the National Association ofrnScholars to key committees involvingrn4/CHRONICLESrnrnrn