From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Aug 14 2003 - 13:55:09 BST
Hi Steve,
> Based on what I've read so far, there is much evidence that Rorty is not
> the Communist that Platt seems to think he is and is rather a liberal
> Democrat.
Is there a difference? :-)
> Rorty said on page 4, "I think that our country -- despite its past and
> present atrocities and vices, and despite its continuing eagerness to
> elect fools and knaves to high office -- is a good example of the best
> kind of society so far invented." I agree.
>
> Platt, does this describe your hostility toward Rorty? "The right's
> hostility [toward Rorty/pragmatism] is largely explained by the fact
> that rightest thinkers don't think it is enough just to prefer
> democratic societies. One has to believe that they are Objectively
> Good, that the institutions of such societies are grounded in Rational
> First Principles."
Since Rorty claims to have no principles, you have to wonder why he
says he "prefers" one thing over another. On what basis does he
"prefer" other than his whim of the moment?
Free market (capitalist) societies are not just objectively good
(compare the U.S. to Russia) but metaphysically good if you believe in
the principles of the MOQ.
"A free market is a Dynamic institution. What people buy and what
people sell, in other words what people value, can never be contained
by any intellectual formula. What makes the marketplace work is Dynamic
Quality. The market is always changing and the direction of that change
can never be predetermined. The Metaphysics of Quality says the free
market makes everybody richer by preventing static economic patterns
from setting in and stagnating economic growth. That is the reason the
major capitalist economies of the world have done so much better since
World War II than the major socialist economies. It is not that
Victorian social economic patterns are more moral than socialist
intellectual economic patterns. Quite the opposite. They are less moral
as static patterns go. What makes the free-enterprise system superior
is that the socialists, reasoning intelligently and objectively, have
inadvertently closed the door to Dynamic Quality in the buying and
selling of things. They closed it because the metaphysical structure of
their objectivity never told them Dynamic Quality exists." (Lila,
Chap.17)
You see the results of liberal Democrat policies in California today--a
$38 billion deficit (which is larger than the budgets of 48 states) and
credit rating of junk bond status. When the governor, U.S senators,
state legislature and congressional delegation are all liberal
Democrats, you see what happens. I doubt if today we offered to give
California back to Mexico, they'd accept.:-)
Platt
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