Commentary Several months ago, a professional acquaintance of mine died after a long and happy married life, a distinguished academic career with many books written and essays/reviews published in top periodicals, and a liberal philosophy nicely intact in this age of confusion. I’d met him 20 years before at an academic conference in a faraway city. During a discussion at that event, he had risen in the audience to defend the literary theorist Paul de Man, and I admired his willingness to voice an opinion against the dominant one in the room. I approached him, introduced myself, and we talked for a few happy minutes and parted. A week later I contacted him again. Earlier that year I had written a review of a collection of essays by diverse people and edited by him on the subject of pragmatism in literary and cultural criticism. It was a negative review, not …