Philosopher and political observer Richard Rorty died Friday at 75. His thoughtfulness will be missed.
If you don't know much about Mr. Rorty and his writings, this brief entry in his New York Times obituary suggests the kind of thinker he was to become: He was "raised in a home where 'The Case for Leon Trotsky' was viewed with the same reverence as the Bible might be elsewhere." In short, down to earth -- where we all live -- and intellectually far ranging.
This intellectual proclivity to focus on what actually matters to people is what led Rorty to eschew the recondite epistemological and "poppycock" philosophy that surrounded his academic tower, and further led him to rely "primarily on the only authentic American philosophy, pragmatism," which he brilliantly repackaged and reargued as neopragmatism, whose relevance to real life and real people, of course, repelled many of his lofty colleagues.
"Over time, he became increasingly occupied by politics," noted the obit. And given yet more time, naturally, "he despaired" of those politics.
He took on "the Bush administration [and] the religious right" -- as anyone who bothers to give any thought to the Bush administration and the religious right would -- but also the modern Democratic Party, which should, after all, speak loudly for all those who do.
Again, Rorty's obituary nicely summarized his discontent -- "that the genuine social-democratic left that helped shape the politics of the Democratic Party from 1910 through 1965 had collapsed. In an interview, he said that since the ’60s, the left 'has done a lot for the rights of blacks, women and gays, but it never attempted to develop a political position that might find the support of an electoral majority.'"
It may have been a shadow of the more elaborate European "social-democratic left" that emerged in America throughout the years first noted, but the left's character of that era was that of a broad FDR coalition, intensely concerned with "big" issues, especially those of economic justice and thus an equitable distribution of resources and wealth.
The left made its greatest strides to date -- e.g. Social Security, Medicare, fair labor practices -- in the years prior to the entrenchment of identity politics. But it then marginalized itself by losing itself in -- by narrowing itself to -- those politics over the politics of universality. Its increasingly acute dependence became a chronic addiction.
The Dems' newest obsession with now-old identity politics is symptomatically evident in their pandering to Hispanic voters. The broader approach's political success was, is, stunningly obvious, yet is largely neglected in today's district-by-district or state-by-state scramble for any slightest of electoral edge.
Rorty clung to the hope that the left would eventually right itself, but that, at best, seems a coin toss. Aside from its alienating identity-politics fixation (which E.J. Dionne also thoroughly pummeled in Why Americans Hate Politics), the Democratic Party is as hooked on big money as you know who -- a contemptible reality that will likely and insidiously sustain the plutocratic victory under the neon-flashing cover of caring more than the other guys for this group or that.
The social-democratic left is in need of more articulate voices of the longue durée, as was Rorty's -- ones that emphasize the steady pursuit of the broadest of ideals, the responsible "social" over the big-d "democratic"; the latter of which in fact benefits from the former, but is too tied up in short-term, opportunistic knots to intellectually appreciate it or even have time for it. Rorty was right, and he will be missed.