Linker on Rorty

Damon Linker writing in The New Republic has an odd take on Richard Rorty's influence on the development of liberalism. Linker accuses Rorty of "implying that every outlook but his own inevitably clashes with liberal politics" and of therefore coming "perilously close to transforming liberalism into a monistic philosophy--a comprehensive doctrine to which all liberal citizens must pledge absolute allegiance." Curiously, Linker doesn't quote any writing by Rorty that carry this implication.

He then recommends as an alternative "less dogmatic philosophies of liberalism--those found in the essays of Isaiah Berlin, in the later writings of John Rawls, and even in the books of conservative theorist Michael Oakeshott," people who "defended a form of liberalism that Rawls called 'political, not metaphysical.'" The thing is that this is exactly what Rorty thinks. His essay on "The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy" (see also this) is an explicit defense of later Rawls against critics who maintain that he needs deeper philosophical foundations.

Comments

Zzzzzzzzzzzz...

Posted by Bill | June 12, 2007 10:30 AM

Rorty would do for philosophy what Bob Shrum and the DLC did for the Democratic Party: eliminate any sort of discourse that had the potential to inspire people or stir relevant passions.

Such weak tea is the drink of losers, and has served to ease the way for the GOP's quasi-fascistic turn.

Posted by lampwick | June 12, 2007 10:41 AM

As our first two commenters illustrate, this is a very basic problem- we are all idiots, but democracy, over time, works better than any collection of brilliant people we have seen.

Anyone who has advanced to the 200-level of any subject then gazes in astonishment at how breath-takingly stupid the comments of the hoi polloi seem. Take an undergrad degree and you see, in retrospect, the underlying wisdom of the term 'sophomore'. Continue upwards and, eventually, you reach peaks from which you cannot even see the plain below.

But who were arguably the two greatest characters of the 20th century? Churchill and Roosevelt, who had the wit and wisdom to respect the common people who didn't know anything. And, in spite of today's disrespect of Mao by sophomoric commenters, his placement of the revolution squarely in the villages of China marked the turning point of China's relation to the industrializing world around it.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled ill-informed discourse. It is, after all, the weak tea of which democracy is made.

Posted by serial catowner | June 12, 2007 11:00 AM

If you can't trust a former Ghouliani speechwriter and editor of a theocon journal like First Things to explain the writings of Rorty then who, I ask, can you trust?

question: do you have to publish Op-Eds in the Wall Street Journal before you get published by the The New Reichstag, or is it simply a recommended step?

Posted by mrs. ibrahim al-jafaari | June 12, 2007 11:01 AM

"this is exactly what Rorty thinks"

Rorty doesn't think anything anymore. He's dead.

Posted by CJColucci | June 12, 2007 11:17 AM

Churchill and Roosevelt, who had the wit and wisdom to respect the common people who didn't know anything.

Didn't Roosevelt get us involved on the side of the Allies in the pre-Pearl Harbor period, expressly against the wishes of the common people who wanted nothing to do with the war in Europe?

Posted by Steve | June 12, 2007 11:26 AM

I think that Linker is right in distinguishing Rorty's take on religion from Rawls - JR thought politics should be indifferent to religion while Rorty (somewhat famously) that xtians make bad citizens. Rorty obviously agrees with JR that metaphysics should stay out of politics, but he goes further than JR when he says that metaphysics is hindrance to politics. (I was, however, at one of his talks a couple of years back when he backed off his good xtian = bad citizen thing.)

Posted by berger | June 12, 2007 11:27 AM

Actually, Linker is right about Rorty, who, in the tradition of Dewey, insisted more traditional views in epistemology and metaphysics than his own were intrinsically opposed to liberalism, democracy, and liberty.

Some combative secularists now say the same about traditional religion. Even liberal religion.

How to make more enemies than you need to.

Posted by gaius sempronius gracchus | June 12, 2007 11:33 AM

serialcatowner:

One person's 'sophomore' is another's overeager, non-tenure-tracked Philosophy 201 lecturer (as your post illustrates.)

Posted by Bill | June 12, 2007 12:01 PM

serialcatowner:

One person's 'sophomore' is another's overeager, non-tenure-tracked Philosophy 201 lecturer (as your comments somehow reminded me.)

Posted by Bill | June 12, 2007 12:02 PM

Rorty (somewhat famously) that xtians make bad citizens. - berger

Didn't the (non-Christian) ancient Romans feel the same way? Didn't Gibbon, as much as he could have said so at the time and place in which he wrote (could you imagine the hubbub, though, if The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire came out today? you'd never hear the end of it from the right about how historians hate Christianity, etc. ...), say the fears of these Romans were right?

Posted by DAS | June 12, 2007 1:47 PM

When I asked my dad why he enlisted before the war started, he said "Everybody knew there was going to be a war."

Posted by serial catowner | June 12, 2007 1:49 PM

"implying that every outlook but his own inevitably clashes with liberal politics" and of therefore coming "perilously close to transforming liberalism into a monistic philosophy--a comprehensive doctrine to which all liberal citizens must pledge absolute allegiance."

That sounds like a pretty good definition for the New Republic these days.

Posted by Reality Man | June 12, 2007 5:02 PM

Isn't egalitarianism a "foundationalist" premise of this essay and in contrast to its denial of foundationalism?

Surely it was not Rorty's position that the kind of egalitarianism he argues for is the result only of our historical experience, which historical evidence might over time dislodge?

Posted by basman | June 12, 2007 11:11 PM

Rorty (somewhat famously) that xtians make bad citizens. - berger

Plenty of Christians have said this. Tolstoy, the Quakers, basically anyone who takes the Sermon on the Mount as their central text. When push comes to shove, it's pretty hard to live up to that sort of moral code when a prominent part of what the State requires of you as a citizen is to either participate in violence or fund the participation of others in violence to achieve its ends.

Posted by J. Dunn | June 13, 2007 3:54 PM

Roosevelt limited our aid to the allies before Pearl Harbor because of his deep respect for and wish to act on behalf of the will of the electorate (in not wanting to go to war). But, contrary to folklore, by 1940, after England was bombed, the common people had ceased being isolationist. Roosevelt's Republican opponent, Wilkie, was an interventionist who believed in a strong defense and was therefore selected by his party as their candidate over his isolationist rivals, in keeping with the will of the common people.

It is therefore not true that Roosevelt acted in opposition to the wishes of the people. Furthermore, recent historians who have had access to Roosevelt's hitherto private papers, have found that his private statements were in keeping with his public ones. He truly did want to keep us out of all-out war.

Posted by Harold | June 15, 2007 3:47 PM