Re: Rorty on socialism

["Harry Veeder" <veed0001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----------
>From: "Alan G. Isaac" <aisaac@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: POST-KEYNESIAN THOUGHT <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Rorty on socialism
>Date: Fri, Feb 11, 2000, 8:13 am
>

>This may interest some on pkt
>(and infuriate others).
>Alan Isaac
>
>Richard Rorty, "For a more banal politics".
>
<snip>
>It is going to take a long period of readjustment for us Western leftist
>intellectuals to comprehend that the word "socialism" has been drained of
>force--as have been all the other words that drew their force from the idea
>that an alternative to capitalism was available.  Not only are we going to
>have to stop using the term "capitalist economy" as if we knew what a
>functioning non-capitalist economy looked like but we are going to have to
>stop using the term "bourgeois cultures" as if we knew what a viable
>non-bourgeois culture in an industrialized society would look like.


As generalists, Marx and Plato were wrong
but this does not mean Rorty is generally right.

I agree with Rorty that the language of socialism
has become an impediment to human progress even if the
underlying sentiments have quietly changed for
the better.

I believe a "shepherd" economy is preferable
to either a "laize-faire" or a "planned" economy.
A shepherd provides feedback to guide the flock
to greener pastures..

<snip>
>What is so surprising and refreshing about Havel's tone, to my mind, is that
>he seems prepared to go all the way in replacing theoretical insight with
>groundless hope and trial and error. As he says in the interviews collected
>as Disturbing the Peace, "hope is not prognostication." Throughout those
>interviews, he emphasizes his lack of interest in underlying forces and
>historical trends.
<snip>


Havel is right that "hope is not prognostication". However he is wrong
that hope can be groundless. Hope is grounded in the present
not the future. We need to be *certain* of where we are *now*
(rather than where we are  going) to have hope. This is "true" hope.
"False" hope flows from expectations about the future.
When we have true hope we are able to face the uncertain future
without contracts or liquidity.

Calling for trial and error with no understanding of the spiritual
dymanics of hope is dumb. Such "experimentalists" are free to perform
social experiments on themsleves if they so desire, but I am
tired of participating in *their* social experiments -- socialist
capitalist or otherwise.

Harry Veeder