Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2001 11:47:45 +0100
From: newidder <N.E.Widder-AT-exeter.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: more on rorty


>    One thing that I really am curious about, though, is what people's
>problems are with liberal politics. Because I share Rorty's politics (if you
>were to go issue by issue), I really have no problem with them until I
>consider the sort of cultural imperialism that we've seen in Vietnam,
>Grenada, Panama, Kosovo, etc...


Have you not read any Foucault???  The problem with liberal politics, for him, 
are precisely that it rests upon disciplinary frameworks which, despite their 
attempts to be secular and post-metaphysical, still hold to religious and 
metaphysical ideals of purity and identity.  One can still hold to these 
values even while recognising the contingency of how we got here, as Rorty 
does (and Berlin and most liberals before him).  Why do you need to see 
Vietnam, Grenada, and the rest to be suspicious:  you don't have a problem 
with the way liberal society defines criminal delinquency, sexual deviancy, 
the unemployed, single mothers, benefits seekers?


>
>Nate


Nathan

Dr. Nathan Widder
Lecturer in Political Theory
University of Exeter
Department of Politics
Amory Building
Rennes Drive
Exeter  EX4 4RJ
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1392 263 183
Fax: +44 (0)1392 263 305
http://www.ex.ac.uk/shipss/politics/staff/widder/