From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Feb 11 2003 - 13:36:47 GMT
Hi Erin, Kevin, Matt, All:
KEVIN::
> >At any rate, I hope anyone curious will read the Rorty essay in
> >question. It's a wonderful argument for not waiting for the Ultimate
> >Answer before we begin to build a better society for ourselves. In
> >short, it's a call to "practicality" and "action" rather than debate, much
> >like Mari and others have been making.
ERIN:
> Well I do have Rorty on my reading list and
> do like a lot of what I hear about him.
> But I am still lost about this call for action.
> Can you give me examples of the actual action?
> The whole public private split AND the call
> to stop debating and take this out to the public sincerely confuses
> me. Right now the call for action without any concrete
> examples of the action being done by the callers are leaving me with the
> same feeling of when I hear a Jehovah Witness knocking at my door.
PH:
To get an idea of Rorty's call to action, here are a few excerpts from
Oscan Wilde's essay that Rorty praises and then implores us " . . . to
cooperate to build Wilde's utopia."
WILDE
"The possession of private property is very often extremely
demoralising, and that is, of course, one of the reasons why Socialism
wants to get rid of the institution. In fact, property is really a nuisance."
"For the recognition of private property has really harmed Individualism,
and obscured it, by confusing a man with what he possesses."
"With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful,
healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things,
and the symbols for things."
"Socialism annihilates family life, for instance. With the abolition of
private property, marriage in its present form must disappear."
"High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means
simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. It has
been found out."
"And as for the People, what of them and their authority? Perhaps of
them and their authority one has spoken enough. Their authority is a
thing blind, deaf, hideous, grotesque, tragic, amusing, serious, and
obscene. It is impossible for the artist to live with the People. All
despots bribe. The people bribe and brutalise. Who told them to
exercise authority?"
PH
Rorty's call to action has three steps: 1) eliminate private property, 2)
end the institution of marriage, and 3) do away with democracy. I give
him credit though. Unlike many of his fellow travelers, he makes no
attempt to hide his political agenda.
Platt
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
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 Feb 11 2003 - 13:41:41 GMT