Doug writes:
> Ok, then it's just the queers I guess.
Ha. Guess we can end that thread on "Humor and the Left." Doug then adds:
> And, answering myself, I should add that I bet that American purity
> thinking is behind Alterman and other vulgar versions of
antipostmodernism.
I'm unsure what to make of what you mean by "being against the queers." If you're asking if Rorty is homophobic, then I think the answer is no. If you're asking would he object to certain forms of essentialist queer identity-theory, then the answer is probably yes. But let's not confuse identity politics with the politics of identity-theory.
Re: the second part, suffice it to say that I don't think Rorty is advocating a version of Emerson, e.g. "The American Scholar." Rorty's anti-postmodernism, as such, is a little more nuanced than that. Topic for another message.
Frances writes:
> don't necessarly fit together in any coherent whole. Sure, Rorty likes
> what Derrida is doing to _philosophy_, but we're not talking philosophy
> right now, we're talking politics. And I am far from convinced that Rorty
> has any affinities for the political implications. Looking through
> Rorty's paper "Ironism and theory," Rorty is clearly only interested in
> Derrida's ability to _privatize_ his theorizing. That is, Derrida's
Insofar as Doug's original post concerned:
> Isn't this just one more attempt (by Rorty on the high end and Alterman on
> the low) to assert some pragmatic, pure native strain Americanism, against
> all that decadent and foreign stuff going on in the humanities
departments?
> In the 50s it was Marxists; in the 90s it's Derrideans and queers.
I directed my reply to the question of whether Rorty was part of "some
pragmatic" attempt to keep "decadent and foreign stuff" out of humanities
departments (which, I assumed, included philosophy departments). So, I
think, we agree on that part. But turning from _philosophy_ to _politics_,
since you write:
> ..., but we're not talking philosophy
> right now, we're talking politics. And I am far from convinced that Rorty
(though I think my reply had more to do with the former (see above).
Here's the relevant bit:
> Derrida's ability to _privatize_ his theorizing. That is, Derrida's
> theoirizng has nothing to do with anything outside his own theorizing. He
> doesn't even take into account the history of philosophy, much less the
> political implications and quietistic stance that might come out of taking
> his work seriously as a political tool.
Well, Frances, I'm not sure about some of this. Doesn't take into account
the history of philosophy? That's like saying Coletrane doesn't take into
consideration the history of jazz. I read Derrida as one extended riff on
the history of philosophy. In a book like _Margins of Philosopy_, for
example, he touches upon just about everybody, and demonstrates that he
really does know the stuff. As far as the implications of Derrida's thought,
I'm not sure that is a settled question (I've got his _The Other Heading:
Reflections on Today's Europe_ in front of me, but as you know, I'm in the
middle of comps, so no fun reading--anybody read it?). However, I think it
is characteristic of most mis-readings of Derrida to claim that he has
uncovered some radically new method in philosophy/interpretation, and then
to debate about whether this method leads to quietism or activism. In that
sense, I think Rorty's reading is _right_. In "Is Derrida a transendental
philosopher?", footnote 6 summarizes chapter 6 of _Contingency..._:
"In that book I claim that "theory" cannot do much to bring the excluded in from the margins--to enlarge the community whose consensus sets the standards of objectivity--that that other kinds of writing (notably novels and newspaper stories) can do quite a lot."
Now if you're going to make some claim about the political implications, like Rakesh Bhandari (talking about Alterman's article):
> And sometimes the higher the level the abstraction, the more subversive
> the critique. A critique of wage labor as a historically specific social
> relation of production is pretty abstract after all.
I don't think that for Rorty this can be taken at face-value. If you're asserting a connection between the abstraction of theory and subversion, then you've got to make a lot stronger case than "...critique of wage labor is ...pretty abstract." Because what Rorty is talking about is the metaethical, or ethical psychology (I think) of expanding community. Of course some theories are going to be abstract, since abstraction expands their domain. But an expanded domain is _not_ the same as an expanded community.
Hey, this is fun, but got to get back to Locke and Nietzsche (finishing Thursday),,
John
John St. Clair University of South Florida Department of Philosophy Cooper 107 Tampa, FL 33620
Office: CPR 267 Phone: 813-974-5896 Hours: M 3-5, T 10-12 http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~jstclair/