Before I move on to my next immersion (Zizek’s The Indivisible Remainder (I would like to touch on some the issues I have not so much with Rorty as with my relationship with him. Coming to him from the challenge of Deleuze, as I often do, I sometimes get the feeling of something almost too familiar. It’s like my philosophical filters are so tuned to him (as well as American Pragmatism (that it begins to feel like little more than self flattery. On the uptick, though, much as Joseph Campbell did when I first started my intellectual process, it excites me about what I’m doing. It’s almost like a war dance or pep rally that, through the communal energy and validation of a successful philosopher, accelerates my process. And I would also point out that what Rorty does offer me is a survey of the various ways in which one can approach the pragmatic method (Donaldson, Dewey, etc.), the various angles that helps me develop my own process, as well as an articulate and clear explanation of the historical context in which I am working.
The downside of this accessibility is that it has allowed me to recognize an issue with Rorty’s propensity towards meta-philosophy –one that his more vehement critics have likely grabbed onto and exploited. He’s clearly committed to social justice. The problem is that most of what I read in Rorty is a lot talk about how to talk about social justice. What I don’t see, outside of passing references to support his meta-philosophy, are concrete discussions about actual social justice. No doubt Habermas would have noted this.
In his defense, though (and in an abstract way, it is as if he is following the same mandate laid upon writers: to show rather than tell. He doesn’t just tell you that the idea is to seek to change the dialogue, metaphors, and vocabulary involved; he, in his writing, actually seeks to change the dialogue, metaphors, and vocabulary involved.
So while it leaves you longing for more concrete descriptions of and prescriptions for social injustice (like that of social criticism (it still presents an important and powerful tool (one among many (towards that end. As the latest unwitting victim of my diabolical propensity towards bricolage, Tony, says:
“ It seems to me that I am reading; for as long as there have been power portals there have been philosophers. But as philosophers are unchanged in their core stance;- to philosophise and philosophically hope that others may feel the same. Thus adopting the changes however glacial in their becoming. On the other hand the power capitalists can mutate new ways to push these ideas and philosophies out into the cold to further quarantine those useful to them from critical thought.”
And for context, my response:
“I’m thinking reality TV here, Tony. (Good points, BTW.) In fact, I would expand this into the general way that corporate media has spiraled into a general race to the bottom. Not sure how old you are, but there was a time when The Learning Channel was actually about learning, when A & E was actually about Arts and Entertainment, and Bravo was actually the culture channel. It’s like they’re doing everything they can to dumb us down.”
What we are talking about here are discourses (language games (as well as power discourses in the case of corporate media. And as Layotard points out, language games too often (especially in terms of power discourses (end up being about controlling the rules of the game: what Marcuse referred to as operationalism. In this sense, Rorty’s agenda was almost prophetic. Nothing could define the traditional role of the philosopher (as Tony suggests (make them so important as that of asserting the poetic/metaphorical (for instance: the subjective experience of those suffering under Capitalism (in the face of the so-called objective understanding of the world that Capitalism claims (via science (it can produce.
As Rorty suggests, before we can change anything, we have to (via the poetic: resonance and seduction (change the sensibility of the actors involved. And we will have to do it by staying ahead of the power discourse that tends to assimilate our attempts at doing so.
Once again, Camus:
“Ultimately, all arguments for beauty are arguments for freedom. “