MD Contradictions

From: Ant McWatt (antmcwatt@hotmail.co.uk)
Date: Tue Mar 22 2005 - 01:00:52 GMT

  • Next message: ian glendinning: "Re: MD Contradictions"

    Matt Kundert stated to Ant McWatt March 21st 2005:

    Of course I wasn't commenting on my own political participation in real (not
    internet) life. I was only commenting on my participation in the MD.
    Everybody makes choices on where to expend their energy and I choose not to
    expend energy on politics in the MD because it seems pretty fruitless to me.

    Ant McWatt comments:

    Matt,

    Your comments about your own political participation in the MOQ Discuss are
    fair enough as far as they go but are misleading in the sense that Hampday
    is referring to politics in the general “real life” context i.e. he states:

    “I care much less about the socio-cultural issues that consume what's left
    of the space in this forum. I'll admit this may be a shortcoming on my
    part, as several have tried to impress me with the notion that philosophy
    means nothing unless ‘we can do something with it’ – one even suggesting
    that it lead to a Marxist type revolution”

    (Hampday to Matt K March 19th 2005)

    Moreover, rather than your views on politics, I was critiquing Rorty’s
    position regarding private and public life in “Contingency, irony and
    solidarity” though evidently he was becoming less reactionary
    (politically-wise) fifteen years later i.e.

    Knobe: You have criticized Foucault and others for their radical politics.

    Rorty: What I object to about them is that they never talk in terms of
    possible legislation, possible national economic policy, things that might
    actually be debated between political candidates and you might pass a law
    about or something like that. It seems to me to be a continuation of the
    '60s attitude that the system is so hopelessly corrupt that you don't really
    take part in the day-to-day politics. You rise above it and sneer at it.
    They don't even try to be solutions. They're radical critiques without
    radical proposals.

    Knobe: Should philosophers offer specific political proposals?

    Rorty: I don't think there's any general rule.

    From “A Talent for Bricolage: An Interview with Richard Rorty”

    by Joshua Knobe, “The Dualist”, Issue 2, 1995, pp.56-71

    Best wishes,

    Anthony

    _________________________________________________________________
    Want to block unwanted pop-ups? Download the free MSN Toolbar now!
    http://toolbar.msn.co.uk/

    MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
    Mail Archives:
    Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
    Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
    MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net

    To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
    http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Mar 22 2005 - 01:13:46 GMT