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Members of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking

by qntty 9y ago

Members of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers — themselves desperately afraid of being downsized — are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else. At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for — someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots. One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past 40 years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. … All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet. -Richard Rorty, 1998

cmrdporcupine 9y ago
I can assure you that if 'postmodernist professors' were calling the shots, the world would look far different than it does. For better or for worse I can't say. But very different.
mccoyspace 9y ago
That is a fantastic quote from a truly great American thinker. You could add to it the quote from Ron Suskind's article from an unnamed Bush administration official: "The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [...] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'" [1] This is a very 'postmodern' statement, but coming from the Right and from a government official able to wield the power of the State rather than a poor undergraduate or marginalized assistant professor of humanities. Arguably postmodernist thought has been so effective in describing contemporary social reality that it has been fully absorbed by the cultural/political Right. Claims of "fake news" alt-right social media memes, totalizing institutional critique -- these all are 'weaponized' forms and tactics from the postmodern Left, but now as mainstream tool of right-wing political action. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-and-the-presidency-of-george-w-bush.html http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-a...
- jbattle 9y ago
  That doesn't strike me as postmodern at all. It strikes me as classical realpolitik
  - mccoyspace 9y ago
    I also think it could be seen as realpolitik. I depends on how strongly you take "we create our own reality". Even Postmodernism has a kind of 'classical' version that emerges historically from Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx and Nietzsche. cf. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/
pault 9y ago
Do you have a source for this?

by qntty 9y ago

cmrdporcupine 9y ago

I can assure you that if 'postmodernist professors' were calling the shots, the world would look far different than it does. For better or for worse I can't say. But very different.

mccoyspace 9y ago

That is a fantastic quote from a truly great American thinker. You could add to it the quote from Ron Suskind's article from an unnamed Bush administration official: "The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [...] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'" [1] This is a very 'postmodern' statement, but coming from the Right and from a government official able to wield the power of the State rather than a poor undergraduate or marginalized assistant professor of humanities. Arguably postmodernist thought has been so effective in describing contemporary social reality that it has been fully absorbed by the cultural/political Right. Claims of "fake news" alt-right social media memes, totalizing institutional critique -- these all are 'weaponized' forms and tactics from the postmodern Left, but now as mainstream tool of right-wing political action. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-and-the-presidency-of-george-w-bush.html http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-a...

jbattle 9y ago
That doesn't strike me as postmodern at all. It strikes me as classical realpolitik
- mccoyspace 9y ago
  I also think it could be seen as realpolitik. I depends on how strongly you take "we create our own reality". Even Postmodernism has a kind of 'classical' version that emerges historically from Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx and Nietzsche. cf. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/

pault 9y ago

Do you have a source for this?