Brinkley senses this, and he appeals to his fellow liberals to engage the traditions of those who criticize the modern so-called liberal order. Ellis seems open-minded enough, yet he poses the question of how democratic and egalitarian premises lead to authoritarian conclusions without even a soupçon of familiarity with Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, or Ronald Coase. He depicts "the Goldwater candidacy" as seeming to legitimate "the evils of segregation, the reactionary and often brutally violent resistance to civil rights for blacks, [and] the conspiratorial fantasies of the John Birch Society." He is certain that "redistributive or welfare measures are not inherently illiberal" and that we need "more today than ever before" a sharper sensitivity to "the inevitable and profound inequalities generated by capitalist markets." Such asides aside, however, Ellis argues in good faith, mind to mind.
Rorty, by contrast, recognizes no good faith among his adversaries. The left ("by definition," he asserts) is the agent of hope, because it alone works for the redistribution of wealth, the reduction of suffering, the end of sadism, and the defeat of selfishness. Critics of the left are "part of a larger attempt to discredit all critics of the cynical oligarchy that has bought up the Republican Party." When the data of history--the productivity of free men and women, and the catastrophe of state power --contradict one's view of reality, one either changes one's view of reality or denies the very notion of reality altogether. Rorty has chosen the latter course, responding to empirical claims with "fictions."
Unlike Rorty, Brinkley and Ellis seek lessons from history. May their coalitions broaden and deepen, open as they are to data and criticism. May Rorty theorize in peace, happily detached from the problems posed by human, historical, and natural fact.
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