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A review by beepbeepbooks
Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America by Richard Rorty
3.0
curious but bold... echoes of this book continue to reverberate throughout our time, especially his prophetic thought based on Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here, extremely chilling to think that that very phenomenon repeated itself (now as a farce) in actual political events.
Yet I find his arguments contradictory, on occasions. His wide generalizations toward a general Marxist academic, or a Foucauldian left open his arguments up to a lack of critical engagement. Certainly there are teleological elements within strands of Marxist thought, but to throw the baby out with the bathwater only removes some of the best critical traditions we have for studying capitalism, and for creating solidaristic networks. The idea that hope must remain in the nation seems to me another ideal religion, a civic worship that, at worst is repeated by Mark Lilla and his complete dismissal of identity politics.
His note in the back of the book against certain strands of literary studies also fails to reckon with the state of academia writ large, and the more difficult, structural institutions in the way of a richer, more varied humanities education. Why attack specific thinkers, when there are, more pragmatically, developments going on in schooling in America that affect the entire academic field?
There are sparks in Rorty's thought. The inspiration and hope he provides can hit hard and provide an impulse to act and return to the fight. But does he give us more than other thinkers? Is it worth the disparagement of other forms of thought to agree with Rorty? These are questions that still deserve attention, attention that is, as Rorty would prefer, hopeful as well as critical.
Yet I find his arguments contradictory, on occasions. His wide generalizations toward a general Marxist academic, or a Foucauldian left open his arguments up to a lack of critical engagement. Certainly there are teleological elements within strands of Marxist thought, but to throw the baby out with the bathwater only removes some of the best critical traditions we have for studying capitalism, and for creating solidaristic networks. The idea that hope must remain in the nation seems to me another ideal religion, a civic worship that, at worst is repeated by Mark Lilla and his complete dismissal of identity politics.
His note in the back of the book against certain strands of literary studies also fails to reckon with the state of academia writ large, and the more difficult, structural institutions in the way of a richer, more varied humanities education. Why attack specific thinkers, when there are, more pragmatically, developments going on in schooling in America that affect the entire academic field?
There are sparks in Rorty's thought. The inspiration and hope he provides can hit hard and provide an impulse to act and return to the fight. But does he give us more than other thinkers? Is it worth the disparagement of other forms of thought to agree with Rorty? These are questions that still deserve attention, attention that is, as Rorty would prefer, hopeful as well as critical.