Alterman and Rorty (was "Re: Some of what Alterman said)

[Brad De Long]

>On Sat, 23 May 1998, Carrol Cox quotes Alterman:
>>
>> From *Nation* May 25, p. 10, Eric Alterman, "Making One and One Equal Two"
>>
>> 	We live in paradoxical times. America has no left, but it also has
>> two lefts. The reformist/social democratic left is almost exclusively
>> economic in emphasis. It views itself as part of a tradition that
>> stretches back to Eugene Debs and John Dewey. Its idea of a secular saint
>> is the late Irving Howe; its poet laureate is Walt Whitman.
>
>Now I quote from Richard Rorty's new book, _Achieving Our Country_
>
>Whitman and Dewey were among the prophets of the civic religion.  they
>offered a new account of what America was, in the hope of mobilizing
>Americans as political agents.... (15) a Whitman enthusiasist, Eugene V.
>Debs... (52) Howe's ability, in his later decades, to retain both critical
>consciousness and political conscience, while not attempting to fuse the
>two into something larger than either, showed his admirers how to forgo
>such purity and such a pattern.(116)
>
>The two are virtually indistinguishable. Is this just standard liberal
>doctrine?
>
>Yours,
>Frances

I think that Alterman views Rorty as Boss Reformist Social Democrat.

I'm not sure why. It doesn't seem to make much sense to me...

Brad DeLong