ght for the Day // Rorty Making Sense // Steven Hayward

Richard Rorty’s “neo-pragmatism,” which he claimed was a disguise for his nihilism, has never been a favorite of mine. In some ways, he is reminiscent of Christopher Lasch, a late left-leaning defector to current leftist orthodoxy. Here’s Rorty, Achieving our Country. Although it was published in the 1990s this perfectly describes our intellectual moment.

The cultural left is haunted and haunted by specters. One of these specters is called ‘power’. Edmundson refers to Foucault’s ‘haunting agency’. It is everywhere and nowhere. It is as persistent and insistent as a resourceful spook. Foucauldians use the term “power” to denote an agency that has left an indelible mark on every word and every institution of our society. . .

Foucauldian power’s ubiquity is a reminder of Satan’s ubiquity and the ubiquity original sin–a diabolical stain on every soul. . . Now, I would like to say that the Left has become too religious in its commitment to ‘theory’.