Date: June 14th, 2006 3:55 PM Author: Spectacular Voyeur
Sweet. How does he defend the absolute necessity of solidarity other than that it improves our understanding of each other? He wants a liberal ironist utopia where we all actively attempt to engage each other in order to better understand/relate to each other and minimize our desires to harm each other (ala Mill's "experiments in living"), but he allows for Nietzsche's anarchist/seperatist through his concept of the "strong poet", who is allowed to isolate himself in order to be his best possible self, as long as he adheres to this idea of avoiding harm. My problem is, that if everyone decided to be this "strog poet", then his vision of a liberal ironist utopia wouldn't be possible since there would be no improvement on understanding through interaction. How does he account for this?
If you can't tell, my assignment is to explain how Rorty "radicalizes Mill and domesticats Nietzsche."
Date: June 14th, 2006 4:13 PM Author: Khaki nubile son of senegal immigrant
That's a very good criticism. I guess my answer would be he "domesticates Nietzsche." I think he only extends Nietzsche's ideas to the extent to which people's personal narratives are contained and made tidy by a concept of citizenship, which is not a crazy concept, becuase that's basically how America works.
Date: June 14th, 2006 4:28 PM Author: Spectacular Voyeur
Yeah, he is ultimately arguing from the POV of a modern liberal society (even though he admits that even this is contingent) so that makes sense. Cool. I won't focus on this, maybe just note it in passing. Thanks. :-D