[MD] Neoconservatism

[david buchanan]

Matt and all:

Matt said to DMB:
...if you're interested or have the time, there's an article of Rorty's 
online that takes another angle on current American politics.  It again 
argues that philosophy is irrelevant to politics, but it also forwards a 
distinction in the beginning between democracy-as-constitutionalism and 
democracy-as-egalitarianism to catch the difference between American 
rightists and leftists.  So, whatever your disagreements with the 
"philosophy is irrelevant" thing, the distinction might prove to be a useful
weapon to beat about the heads of rightists like Platt.

(The Rorty article is at 
http://www.iranculturestudies.com/english/02_fund-study.html )

dmb says:
I just read the article and I can tell you that its only given me specific 
reasons to hate Rorty's "philosophy". This is the one that really killed me. 
Rorty wrote...

"Many leftist intellectuals in America, and in the West generally, would 
agree that democracy has such a foundation. They too think that certain 
central moral and political truths are, if not exactly self-evident, 
nonetheless transcultural and ahistorical—the product of human reason as 
such, not simply of a certain sequence of historical events. They are 
annoyed and disturbed by the writings of anti-foundationalist philosophers 
like myself who argue that there is no such thing as "human reason".

We anti-foundationalists, however, regard Enlightenment rationalism as an 
unfortunate attempt to beat religion at religion's own game—the game of 
pretending that there is something above and beyond human history that can 
sit in judgment on that history .We argue that although some cultures are 
obviously better than others there are no transcultural criteria of 
"betterness" that we can appeal to when we say that modern democratic 
societies are better than feudal societies, or that egalitarian societies 
are better than racist or sexist ones."

dmb resumes:
There is no such thing as human reason?! There is no criteria that allows us 
to say democractic societies are better than racist, sexist, feudal 
societies?! Well, given that this is how he sees things, its no wonder he 
thinks philosophy is irrelevant to politics. If this were true, then 
philosophy would be irrelevant to anything and everything. To make matters 
worse, this is exactly the sort of nihilistic relativism that gave the 
neocons so much ammo in the first place. Struass also believed in no real 
foundation for democracy and human rights. This is where the "necessary 
illusion" is neeed, to provide a false foundation for the "lazy, stupid 
masses". I mean, its no wonder Rorty fails see the problem with the 
Struassians. The Struassians are out to destroy ideas and principles that 
Rorty doesn't believe in anyway. Its like he doesn't feel the need to defend 
reason or democracy or rights because there is nothing to defend, there is 
nothing to lose. Last time I complained that Rorty is intellectually 
paralyzed and rhetorical inert, but now I think he's actually part of the 
problem.

I want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him real hard and ask him, 
"What the hell is wrong with you, man?" It doesn't matter who he votes for 
or supports with campaign contributions or anything else. This one little 
essay is more than enough to make him an enemy of democracy and human 
rights. And otherwise decent liberals like yourself are obviously being 
ruined by his work. I mean, I really, really hate this guy. At this point, I 
actually prefer Struass to Rorty. Hell, at this point, I prefer Struan 
Hellier. :-0

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