Virtual Morality

By Christopher Hill

The scene is Denver, home of the mighty Western University and its warring faculty, presided over by an ambitious president dreaming of tall, new buildings and by a hapless dean. When a female instructor in the Womyn's Studies course insults a male student and is insulted in turn (with a trans-general epithet), the student is expelled by the hastily organized undergraduate oversight board. Seeking justice for the expelled student is Parker Thompson, the young, morally challenged star of the city's top law firm, who struggles to advance his legal career - and save whatever is left of his soul. Christopher Hill's first novel is a scathing satire of academic hubris and a disturbing portait of American society grasping for a moral compass in an age that has abandoned tradition. Hill's voice, rising from the very bowels of the beast he is describing, is funny, incisive, fresh, and devastating.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1888889187
• ISBN13: 9781888889185
• Release Date: February 2000
• Publisher: Pushcart Press
• Length: 220 Pages
• Weight: 1.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Great story and clear analysis of P.C. on campus

I stayed up into the wee hours to finish this book. The story confronts campus speech codes and how accusations of racism, sexism, ageism, and other "isms" that comprise "diversity," are used to deny freedom of thought on campuses everywhere. It's also a great yarn with bad guys and good guys who don't exactly win, but in the end find a remnant of truth and a bit of courage to stand up for it. Speeches by characters in the book give context and history to the book's point of view. These pages clearly explain deconstruction, postmodernism, academic Marxism and how they all amount to Fascism in Academia. Copy and save these pages!

When the political becomes personal

In Virtual Morality, Christopher Hill offers up his own valuable contribution to the raging debate over postmodernist feminism and the very real effects it can have in the university setting. Hill's thought draws upon a number of very insightful academic studies published over the past decade that highlight the looniness of postmodernist race/gender/class critics and their Maoist leanings that would only be viewed as lunatic outside the university setting. But this book is fiction. It need not have been: the characters and events could have easily occured on any number of American campuses today. In other words, it reads as disturbing because of the fact that it is realistic. The fear of an old-school dean, the political web-spinning of a postmod prof, the hubris of a stunned student, a big-city lawyer's shock at absolutely flagrant attacks on free speech: all of these elements lend this novel the feel of truth. In the end, the book is about truth. Without moralizing (too much), Hill points out that sometimes good IS good and Bad is Really Bad. And what makes this book so appealing is the fact that it addresses an academic debate in such a way as to tell a story, a very possible event, in which the effects of social agendas on real people can be viewed. Very worthwhile read. A rare combination of apropos topic and excellent characterization.

A must read!

The writting clips along at an energegetic pace that kept my nose in the book until it was finished. Mr. Hill does an excellent job at giving an unbiased look at the problems that face society and academia with the prevailing attitudes of political correctness. I am buying this copy for a gift.

Absolutely engrossing !

Picked this title almost at random and was thoroughly captivated. Great characters , setting and plot make this a near perfect novel. The academic background is the perfect stage for the questions of ethics, hypocrisy and morality raised in the story. Don't miss it!