Thus the postmodernists' aversion for books by wealthy white heterosexual males, which are nothing more than projections of an oppressive power structure. Thus the postmodernists' willingness to accept historical constructions by women, homosexuals, and racial minorities that cannot be supported by evidence, but which advance the political agenda of the marginalized and so become liberating alternative truths. This overt politicizing of truth means in practice that reason, evidence, and fact-finding can be set aside by simply exercising power over one's opponents. Today, academic politics has become notoriously nasty, replacing genteel discussion with vicious personal attacks on one's opponents. Similarly, in Washington, the best way to reply to a charge is not to address whether or not it is true but to slander, indict, investigate, or otherwise crush the people who are making it.
Truth is compartmentalized.
Those who are consistent in their beliefs, who try to live according to a specific set of principles, and who imagine that they have a single core identity are, according to postmodernist psychologists such as Mr. Lifton, mentally ill. In a given day and certainly over the course of a lifetime, we play different roles and are thus actually different persons. Instead of having a single core identity, human beings are free to have many identities, compartmentalizing them so they do not impinge on each other. Religion, sexual desires, job demands, family role, and political beliefs are all part of one's makeup, but none of these compartments need have any bearing on any of the others. Observers marveled over how, after the most embarrassing revelations, Mr. Clinton was able to deliver such a bravura performance of the State of the Union address.