[Isara]

Here is the meaning from Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary.

zeitgeist
Pronunciation: 'tsIt-"gIst, 'zIt-
Function: noun
Usage: often capitalized
Etymology: German, from Zeit + Geist spirit
Date: 1884
: the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era

[mdcen]

Thank you for that definition of the word Zeitgeist. "Spirit of the times", my interpretation.

Actually, I was sitting here reading this post and I turned to my bookshelf to find my American Heritage Dictionary (1982 Second College Addition) and lo and behold there were dogears on the pages for Zeitgeist, Narcissism and Nihilism. Postmodernism wasn't listed because we were still in the Modernist era in 1982, I suppose. I must have been studying these words back in my college days(in 1982 I was entering my eleventh year of higher education due to the fact that I had a family to support, a job to keep and couldn't go full time unlike one of the more priviledged ones in our country. But thanks to the GI bill I was being supported in this effort by circumstance in which I would like to thank all of you who pay taxes. Thank you!)

I was wondering what ALgore means by these words. Is he willing to invoke zeitgeist("spirit of the times")to justify his support of the "bent one" during the Lewinsky events? Was it just the "thing to do"? After all, everyone was doing it. Was it nihilism ("the doctrine that all values are baseless" AHD page 842) or narcissism (excepts AHD "excessive love or admiration of oneself" and/or "stage of development in which one's own body is the object of erotic interest"? Was this it? I can't wait for George Will to take him up on the offer to give an interview on the topic of "Postmodernism and the role of Narcissism, Nihilism and Zeitgeist is present day politics". O GOD, someone slap me before I die of laughter.

I could go on but surely my fellow freepers can have a little fun with this.