(no subject)
The problem facing members of the modern illiterati is what to do with the necessity of a college education for entre into the world of high finance and corporate governance. In years past, the world was a simpler place where naked nepotism won out over meritocracy whenever it needed to. However, as corporate power advanced, and the bottom line of the corporation eventually superseded the bottom line of individuals running the corporation, it became obvious that if the antiquated scions of industry were to maintain their influence, a mechanism would have to be put in place to allow them to appear to stand on their own merits. This is where legacies in Ivy League institutions come in. This is the genesis of a ruling elite more interested in their alma mater's football record than in the state of their academic programs. This is the birth of a world of college graduates who doubt the veracity of evolution and attempt to subvert public school boards to prevent its being taught to children.
This is the origin of The Business School.
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The recapitulationist then, is not an artist interested in continuing the process of the enlightenment in the sense that Habermas argued for, neither is he following Lyotard in the freeing of Creativity. No, better to see him in the terrifying shadow of F.T. Maronetti, looking for what is tired, what is worn out, what has been cleansed of any and all novelty, and championing it as the future, as that which holds within itself the essence of our humanity.
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While it is clear to me, and it should be clear to all of you, that the nature of rape has changed dramatically since the beginning of the civil rights movement in the nineteen fifties. There was a time in this nation when the rapist could hide behind DuBoises veil. Countless millions of rapes have no doubt gone on throughout history, and most likely continue to occur in the more backwater locales of this nation, simply because of a disparity of power.
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Rorty mistakenly believes that there is an important thread in philosophy that runs through the hegel-nietzche-heidegger-derrida sequence. He is incredibly wrong; just as he is wrong to take Heidegger's babbling and attempt to meld with him the questions that were ignored by dewey and dissoved by Wittgenstein and meld them into a coherent neopragmatism.
The Root of Rorty's mistake is to see in the wills of other men echoes of the patterns priveleged by his particular project. Were we all to think this way, I might be inclined to insist that the answers are to bound in an invented Laozi-Hume-Kant-Schopenhauer-Wittgenstein-Gadamer sequence. Indeed, I do find I thread of commonality running from Taoism into Habermas and Eco, and particularly Putnam. But to assert that others would find this thread if simply told to look for it is absurd. Of course, it isn't the only absurdity that Rorty's pink nihilism is guilty of.
His position is inconsistent, of course, because by his own understanding of language, there can never be any sequence there to be understood qua sequence. It's the one point with which I wholeheartedly agree, and I wish the Rorty would be intellectually responsible enought to recognize it as one of the implications of his thought.
E.L. Borgnine from The Poetics of Aggravated Sexual Assault