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adevans16's review against another edition
3.0
Got interested in Rorty while reading the recent appreciations after his death. My philosophy colleague recommended this as a good place to start: an accessible and clear discussion of leftism in the late 1990s. Rorty wants the left to drop the obession with culture and get back to the hard work of reforming market capitalism.
crowreader's review against another edition
4.0
A slim volume that calls for a renewed injection of pragmatism into leftist politics. Some of it hits home—almost uncomfortably so—regarding the current US political moment. In other spots, Rorty’s insistence in tone and critique misses the mark, although not by a great distance. Thought-provoking and well worth the read.
inagarten's review against another edition
well he hates communism but he has some good points and i think that every woke white college student who moves to europe to “find themselves” should probably read this first
madtraveler's review against another edition
5.0
A very enlightening read and though now 20 years old, so relevant to this moment in history. I don't usually read political-philosophical books, but this is a worthy exception. Left/Democrat/Progressive types need to read this and reflect. It is not damning, exactly, but nor is it flattering. Without getting too academic (usually) there is a call to action here.
elzecatreads's review against another edition
4.0
An interesting set of lectures about the cultural (academic) left vs. the progressive left...gave me some things to think about. Despite the lectures being given in 1996/1997, the topics are quite relevant for today's political nightmare.
jeeleongkoh's review against another edition
5.0
In his short book Achieving Our Country Rorty argues that the American Left has veered off-course from action into theory, from politics into culture, from participation into spectatorship. He praises the achievements of the cultural Left in elevating the status of women, gay and other minorities, but points out also the dark side of the achievements. The Left has no answer to the economic upheaval of globalization. Rorty: "Globalization is producing a world economy in which an attempt by any one country to prevent the immiseration of its workers may result only in depriving them of employment. This world economy will soon be owned by a cosmopolitan upper class which has no more sense of community with any workers anywhere than the great American capitalists of the year 1900 had with the immigrants who manned their enterprises." This economic elite maintains a cultural elite either to justify the former's existence or to give the appearance of contest by engaging in cultural politics. The general populace, sensing the sympathetic class interests between the economic and the cultural elites, will then revolt against constitutional democracy and elect a strongman. We now have Trump on our hands, as Rorty predicted back in 1998.
Are his suggestions for change already useless? To deal with the consequences of globalization, "the present cultural Left would have to transform itself by opening relations with the residue of the old reformist Left, and in particular with the labor unions. It would have to talk much more about money, even at the cost of talking less about stigma." To effect this transformation, the Left should put a moratorium on theory and mobilize what remains of national pride. "It should ask the public to consider how the country of Lincoln and Whitman might be achieved." Although we should be international-minded, the only real change we can effect is through the current nation-state. We have to subordinate our differences to a common dream. Putting so starkly an approach that Rorty describes in a much more sophisticated and elegant fashion has this advantage at least: it makes clear the difficulty of such a transformation of the American Left.
Are his suggestions for change already useless? To deal with the consequences of globalization, "the present cultural Left would have to transform itself by opening relations with the residue of the old reformist Left, and in particular with the labor unions. It would have to talk much more about money, even at the cost of talking less about stigma." To effect this transformation, the Left should put a moratorium on theory and mobilize what remains of national pride. "It should ask the public to consider how the country of Lincoln and Whitman might be achieved." Although we should be international-minded, the only real change we can effect is through the current nation-state. We have to subordinate our differences to a common dream. Putting so starkly an approach that Rorty describes in a much more sophisticated and elegant fashion has this advantage at least: it makes clear the difficulty of such a transformation of the American Left.
nick_jenkins's review against another edition
4.0
My response to the idea that Rorty "predicted" Trump:
http://s-usih.org/2016/11/why-richard-rorty-was-not-a-prophet.html
http://s-usih.org/2016/11/why-richard-rorty-was-not-a-prophet.html
loppear's review against another edition
4.0
A few lectures from the 1990s giving an excellent critique of how the left in America has ceded political agency and economic goals that can speak to globalization, in favor of dismay and cultural observation. His short rants about the dangers of Buchanan-ist populism and the left's willingness to let the right set the framework even for cultural debates ring very true still today, just an all around punchy call to political involvement by standing for utopian possibilities.
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