From: Kevin (kevin@xap.com)
Date: Tue Feb 11 2003 - 00:05:31 GMT
Platt,
You keep harping on Rorty's choice of "BEST rebuttal" all the while
ignoring the question to which he is supplying a rebuttal.
The question presented to him is that a Literary Culture would be
decadent. Rorty says he thinks that is easily refuted by Wilde, Mill and
Rawls. He chooses Wilde's essay as the "BEST rebuttal", but the
implications is clear from the context that any of the 3 essays (which
all support differing views of political/economic society) successfully
refutes the idea that the ONLY means of creating a noble society is to
find the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.
The question at hand is about the necessity of moral foundations for
building a society, not "what is the best possible society"?
Even so, I think Rorty's view on best possible society is pretty clear.
It's one that allows each person to persue their interests without
infringing on another's right to do the same. He states that over and
over and over.
Does this describe USSR, China, Cuba or any of the other Totalitarian
states you claim that Rorty is advocating?
Is it even necessary to point out the drastic and fundamental
differences between the kind of Utopia described in Wilde's essay with
any of those states?
Rather, I think your irrational spasms of partisan reflexology blind you
to the point being made. Pirsig isn't afraid to say nice things about
Socialism as a theory when it suits his purposes, but I wouldn't mistake
him for a Marxist.
I strongly recommend the Rorty essay to everyone here. It's a very
interesting piece to say the least. Besides, anything that has our Platt
so very fired up has got to be worth a quick read, no?
:-)
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 - 00:06:19 GMT