Richard Rorty on the American Left (1998)

[@lederpsta42]

God how I love the way this man speaks.

[@dommyajd9033]

Can’t get enough

[@lonelycubicle]

Thought I had seen everything on KZbin of Rorty speaking. Thanks for posting.

[@kennyg03]

I'm not a Rorty guy but no one has probably spoken this intellectual and candid on the CSPAN channel since then.

[@bleaaarghh]

Spoken like a true Rorty guy

[@kennyg03]

@@bleaaarghh 😂

[@KingThallion]

@@kennyg03 Welcome in man!

[@amourdesoipittie2621]

Noam Chomsky. Every syllable rorty utters is aboslute non sense.

[@KingThallion]

@@amourdesoipittie2621 What is that supposed to be, a quote or something?

[@kenwatanabe2864]

Kinda eerie hearing the audience having a laugh at very unusual timing during the talk. I know this isn’t the full speech but it’s almost as if the laugh track had been added later.

[@mostlytranslucent]

Rorty was so articulate, thoughtful and likeable. Yet his inveterate anti-Marxism blinded him to what was (and remains) necessary to reconstruct the left. In the decades since this speech his assertive confidence in capitalist politics looks increasingly tendentious.

[@Catofminerva]

Woah how do you find these

[@LarsLarson44]

My American hero is a mushroom cloud.

[@Reviving_Virtue]

I think Rorty rightly points out mid-way through this that Strauss came here from a particular culturally and historically situated context, and what his project was all about did not resonate with the America he landed in. However, a reconstruction of American liberalism that Strauss needed to take place in order for his ideas to gain purchase was undertaken by the cold war liberals such as Isaiah Berlin, Hannah Arendt, Judith Shklar and people like Gertrude Himmelfarb whose son, William Kristol, carried on the mantle of the ideology of Strauss et al thanks to the successful reconstruction of American liberalism.

[@KingThallion]

Reconstruction? No, deconstruction. The cold war liberals created the mess we are in today.

[@hkumar7340]

These are the very same intellectuals that Samuel Moyn blames for the decline of liberalism in his recent "Liberalism Against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times." (I have not read the book, just saw many reviews of it in various fora.)

[@johngrey1074]

The laughter is completely out of place. Bizarre.

[@furtherback6131]

Each one of his dry jokes - or the buildup thereof - is followed by laughter. I think you might just not be picking up on his sarcasm.

[@yoramgt]

The notion that "democracy is good" is essentially all there is to say about normative political theory seems rather superficial. If this truism is accepted, the question of "what is democracy?" seems very far from being resolved despite having been discussed for about two centuries.

[@logos3522]

“Democracy is the rule of the poor over the well born” Aristotle

[@yoramgt]

@@logos3522 This is not much more specific than the literal "rule of the people". What does it mean for the people (or the poor) to "rule"? These days, we are told that this happens when there is "free and fair elections". The Athenians thought that elections are oligarchical and sortition is democratic. Were they right? What does "free and fair" mean anyway? Presumably we can all agree that the US is not democratic. But is, say, Denmark democratic? How would we know? All of these questions are very far from having obvious answers, AFAICT. Rorty's political views were much more conventional and much less penetrating than his ontological/epistemological views, it seems to me.

[@ulquiorra4cries]

I prefer Rorty's epistemology, Zizek's politics, and Sloterdijk's historicism

[@yoramgt]

@@ulquiorra4cries I have listened to a bit of Zizek. Other than being generally a socialist. What exactly are his politics?

[@ulquiorra4cries]

@@yoramgt Ultimately, I'd say he is a postmodern pragmatist. Possibly a liberal.

[@leebarry5686]

Nothing wrong with production and consumption, but disbelief of god and ignoring of His literal words

[@bleaaarghh]

Word salad, sound and fury signifying nothing

[@funkrobert99]

With a bit of hard work you might be able to understand in a few years! Keep trying:)

[@jonnsmusich]

Agree or disagree with his view. But first you have to understand it. And you admit you don't.

[@Catofminerva]

I think criticising Rorty as word salad generator is disingenuous. One thing he’s good at is being clear in his language.

[@alwaysgreatusa223]

@@Catofminerva The man rambles

[@thomaslaubli1886]

You got the message. That's exactly what he wants to say about political philosophy.

[@GNARGNARHEAD]

a great example of confirmation bias run amok