Contingency, irony, and solidarity
In this book Rorty argues that thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein have enabled societies to see themselves as historical contingencies, rather than as expressions of underlying, ahistorical human nature or as realizations of suprahistorical goals. This ironic perspective on the human condition is valuable on a private level, although it cannot advance the social or political goals of liberalism. In fact Rorty believes that it is literature not philosophy that can do this, by promoting a genuine sense of human solidarity. A truly liberal culture, acutely aware of its own historical contingency, would fuse the private, individual freedom of the ironic, philosophical perspective with the public project of human solidarity as it is engendered through the insights and sensibilities of great writers. The book has a characteristically wide range of reference from philosophy through social theory to literary criticism. It confirms Rorty's status as a uniquely subtle theorist, whose writing will prove absorbing to academic and nonacademic readers alike.
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- I'd actually never heard of Margaret MacDonald before, but this approach sounds similar to the more contemporary Richard Rorty, for example in "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity" (which is more artistic and less academic than Rorty's earlier book "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature").
- Several years ago the phrase "post-modern neo-marxist" became prominent. Not being familiar with post-modernism, I started reading some of the philosophers who got lumped into this category. Of these, Rorty was the one I found myself most sympathetic to. His writing is quite accessible and understandable to an intelligent reader. His book, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity is probably the best one to start with. Achieving Our Country is also interesting, but more political.
- I read a lot. These were the best books I read this year.
The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński. Kapuściński was a Polish journalist who traveled around the (mostly developing) world, reporting on civil wars, coups, revolutions, and other tumultuous events. This book recounts many of his experiences in Africa over several decades and is interesting in its insight into the lives of ordinary people. Someone told me Kapuściński had the most interesting life of anyone in the 20th century and I'm inclined to agree with that.
Congo: An Epic History of a People by David Van Reybrouck. Congo is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of natural resources, but one of the poorest and least functional in terms of economics and institutions. This book gives a good overview of the history of Congo and explains why the problems are so deeply rooted.
The Rise and Decline of Nations and Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships, both by Mancur Olson. Why do some nations develop into relatively free, relatively rich countries, while others stagnate in perpetual conflict and poverty? How can countries transition from one of these states to the other? Why is it so hard to get obviously beneficial changes to occur in developed countries? These books try to answer these questions. I don't think they have the entire answer, and they don't have much in the way of easy solutions, but they get a lot of it right.
Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud. I thought Freud was largely discredited and his theories superseded by better ones, but reading this book showed me how insightful Freud really was. He is one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. This book helps you answer questions like: Why are most people unhappy? Why do our societies have so many problems? How can we simultaneously satisfy our desire to live in a community with our desire to be independent?
Spring by Knausgaard. I don't think I can do justice to this by summarizing it. It's a beautiful, sad, and short book. Definitely worth reading.
Against Bosses, Against Oligarchies and Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity by Richard Rorty. I'd been hearing a lot about postmodernism, mostly in a derogatory way, over the past year, but I had a hard time believing many of the criticisms of it were true. These two books do a pretty good job of articulating a postmodern worldview and you realize postmodernism isn't the boogeyman it's been made out to be. In fact, it seems like a fairly obvious step from the Enlightenment ideals of rational inquiry to postmodernisms primary project of questioning where the truths that this rational inquiry finds come from and whether they are valuable or not.
The Burden of Responsibility by Tony Judt. Only worth reading if you are interested in French politics. Profiles three French public intellectuals who stood apart from the mainstream in their opposition to totalitarian communism. Not a hagiography; this book offers criticism of these figures at times, though is largely admiring.
- Gödel, Escher, Bach awakened my intellectual curiosity about formal systems and other autistic modes of beauty as a teenager. After "The Selfish Gene" it was the first book I bought and read on my own volition, so I have to credit it as a major influence.
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs for showing that you can think rigorously and compose beautiful programs out of simple pieces.
Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity by Richard Rorty for showing that it's possible to think and feel about politics while maintaining a profoundly ironic and groundless mind.
The Body in Pain by Elaine Scarry for its beautiful view of civilization as materialized caring and of the inflicting of pain as metaphysically destructive.
Being-in-the-world by Dreyfus for introducing me to Heidegger and showing how continental philosophy inspired by Heidegger was a major force in the evolution of AI and how AI researchers tended to be influenced by rationalist philosophy in the vein of Descartes which leads to huge misunderstandings of the nature of being.
Dhammapada translated by Gil Fronsdal because it's a beautiful exposition of early Buddhist poetry and clearly shows the worldview of south east Asian Buddhism.
Debt by David Graeber for making me interested in money and credit systems from an anthropological point of view.
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace for being hilarious and sad and buzzing with neurotic perceptive overeducated thought in a way that mirrored my own precocious self-consciousness and made me feel less "marooned in my own skull."
The Uses of Disorder by Richard Sennett for giving a defense of the anarchy of urban life that views conflict as necessary for growth.
After Virtue by Alisdair MacIntyre for showing the contemporary situation in thought and ethics as profoundly abnormal and difficult, being the aftermath of the Enlightenment project's failure to ground morality in objective reason, and pointing to virtue within traditions as the only way to live coherently.
The Teachings of Huang-bo for being a merciless and hilarious attack on sanctimonious and ritualistic Buddhism, displaying the role of sarcasm and wit in spirituality, and generally just shouting "wake up, lazy pretentious idiot" on every page.
Fanged Noumena by Nick Land for diving deeply into amphetaminic insanity thus accurately mirroring the schizophrenia of postmodern capitalism.
The letters of Van Gogh.
Phillip Lopate's personal essays.
Hyperobjects by Timothy Morton.
On the Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes.
- I'd rather say that the "pure" is a source of inspiration... which can be good or bad.
For a kind of outlandish but strong example, look at how monotheism can inspire people to extreme struggles.
Or look at how the idea of a coherent and final constitution inspires American politics and the struggle for "a more perfect union."
And yet with all of these things, there's a lot of plumbing and compromise and evolution and war required, too.
Sometimes the pure ideal turns out to be, in hindsight, just a kind of arbitrary notion. Like if your whole ideology is based on God, and then people start to just not believe in that God at all. Then you get a renaissance, but also confusion.
So, like, I love Haskell, and I love to see it grow and develop, but I'm also aware that its strong ideals can from another perspective be considered false idols. Still, ideals are great for rallying around.
Some of what I'm trying to say here is articulated by Richard Rorty, through his concept of "ironism" in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, which I recommend!
- I don't know of any other forums to discuss this stuff, other than philosophy seminars that I'm not invited to, so... what do you think about this?
The polarity between relativism and absolutism in morality is going to end up totally irrelevant, since it leads to nothing but squabbles and more confusion. It's not a productive way forward to try to decide which of those extremes is best, because they each have irreconcilable stances, and they both ultimately come down to arbitrary decision (either "because I feel this way" or "because the ultimate ineffable authority says so").
Even the new school of quasi-objective morality, á la Sam Harris, seems to fail to be convincing, inspiring, or even as rational as it wants to be.
I think a realistic approach to morality should start with the question of what people actually care about. What values exist, in the actual society that I could conceivably influence? How does a person become respected, what motivates people, what appeals are possible?
I have no influence over, say, Saudi Arabian Islam, except for maybe through some secular channels... Actually, the recent article about the global appeal of metal music was interesting. If there is any ethical content in the metal community, which I hypothesize that there is, then it could end up being a kind of covert channel for values...
I'm reminded of the story of the Velvet Revolution, which ended Communist Party rule in Czechoslovakia without violence... and which was rooted in a story that involves The Plastic People of the Universe, an obscure experimental rock band inspired by the Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa, and Captain Beefheart.
> "The Plastic People were ultimately a major catalyst to the overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe. History would most surely have been very different without them."
http://www.furious.com/perfect/pulnoc.html
Um, I'm heading for work and don't have time to think up a coherent way to end this. But a lot of my thinking is influenced by Richard Rorty's Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity.
Just one more random speculation: the focus on "habits" subtly inforces a morality of stability. People who emphasize habits probably aren't going to say that the primary ethical injunction is to dismantle the existing structures of oppression. And you could argue that self-help, including mindfulness and much of psychology and psychiatry, has a stabilizing function within the capitalist system of labor.
