Politics in a land of discourse

Solidarity in the Conversation of Humankind: The Ungroundable Liberalism of Richard Rorty
By Norman Geras
Verso, 1995, 151 pp., $34.95 (pb)
Reviewed by Neville Spencer In the last two decades a new philosophical current has grown. Most generally it might be labelled "linguistic relativism", though the terms "postmodernism" or "post-structuralism" are more common. Although Richard Rorty sees himself as part of the American pragmatist tradition, he is one of the most renowned exponents of this current. Solidarity in the Conversation of Humankind is a critique of Rorty's philosophical theories and their relation to his politics, but it has far more to recommend it than this might suggest. The arguments with which Norman Geras confronts Rorty could equally be employed against most advocates of linguistic relativism (which would include a substantial proportion of contemporary social theorists and philosophers). As such it is one of the clearest and most accessible critiques of postmodernism and its ilk yet to be produced. While Rorty would deny that he is a relativist, what he calls anti-essentialism is a central theme of his arguments. But, as Geras convincingly demonstrates, this leads Rorty to a relativist position from which his attempts to distance himself are untenable. Rorty aims to combat the idea that what we say or think can actually represent the real world in which we exist. This stems from his recognition of the pervasive and indispensable influence of language in our process of understanding. For Rorty, therefore, anything which we confront is just language and should not be misconstrued to represent anything beyond language. The words we use do not denote some immutable "essence" present in reality itself, they are all that there is of reality. Using the term "texts" (largely interchangeable with "language" or "discourse" in such writings) Rorty explains that "the intuitive realist ... thinks that, deep down beneath all the texts, there is something which is not just one more text but that to which various texts are trying to be 'adequate'. The pragmatist does not think that there is anything like that." Thus we need to drop "the notion of a God's eye point of view, a way the world is, apart from our descriptions of it in language". Notions such as "hard facts" or "truth" thus become absurd. As a part of this general anti-essentialist position, he rejects the concept that there is any such thing as "human nature". He denies that all humans have things in common which are trans-historical and are unchanging from one race or nation to the next. Instead, Rorty claims, "the self, the human subject is simply whatever acculturation makes of it". Humans are entirely social products variable from one culture to another, one point in time to another or just from one set of circum­stances to another — "socialisation ... goes all the way down". Geras' main line of attack is to evaluate Rorty's arguments when applied to practical political and ethical problems. Linguistic relativism has always had problems as a practical philosophical position. When dealing with everyday life, it is difficult not to work on the assumption that our language and thoughts actually represent something in the real world. Once the idea of language representing reality has been done away with, we are left in a situation where, according to Rorty, there is no description which is somehow "closer" to what is being explained. He says there is no extra-linguistic reality to which one description or theory might be closer than another. That the Earth revolves around the Sun is just one description, no better or worse than the alternative description that the Sun revolves around the Earth. They are like two different stories of which one might prefer one or the other according to taste. What does this mean for politics? Using the issue of the Holocaust, Geras demonstrates the reactionary conclusions which can be drawn from Rorty's premise. One Holocaust survivor wrote, "Today I am one of the survivors. For 20 years I have constantly heard within my mind the very cry of the murdered: 'Tell it to the world!'." Such are the sentiments of many of the sufferers of great injustices. Letting the world know the truth of these injustices can drive people to take action to fight injustices, and to stop such things from happening again. For Rorty, however, there is no truth. Whatever anyone might say about the Holocaust it will only be one story among other possible stories, none closer to reality than any other. The political consequences are obviously concerning. If there is no way of knowing whether or not something did or didn't happen in reality, apart from any linguistic description of it, then there would be no basis on which to say it was right or wrong. In Contingency, Irony and Solidarity Rorty presents his opposition to the concept of human nature with a discussion of the "rescuers" and their motivations for helping to shelter Jews in their homes in order to save them from the Holocaust. Since he argues that there is no common human nature, it could not possibly be a part of their real motivations for risking their lives. The fact that Jews were other human beings and deserved to be saved simply because they were part of a common humanity is not a possible basis for the rescuers' actions. Rather it is more likely that the motivations for such acts of solidarity were on the basis of less universal, socially constructed identifications with those whom they rescued. They might have taken in Jews because Jews were part of their circle of friends or acquaintances, because they were fellow Parisians or Belgians, or fellow doctors, but not because they were fellow human beings, says Rorty. Citing numerous testimonies of rescuers, Geras points out that the evidence seems to show that the idea that humans do have something in common, aside from any process of acculturation, was the rescuers' main motivation for their actions. Identification with a narrower socially defined group and an unwillingness to see that all humans have something in common seems a more adequate explanation of the motivations of the Nazis. Yet, while Rorty rejects the "universalising" sentiments about the existence of a common humanity as "essentialism" and endorses socially constructed identifications such as "Jew" or "Aryan", he would support the behaviour of the rescuers and not that of the Nazis. How does he justify this? When necessary, he contradicts his own philosophical assertions and reintroduces arguments that rely on a concept of human nature and other such "essentialist" concepts. That humans do have things in common, aside from any process of acculturation, is an obvious and necessary fact upon which to ground any progressive political thought. If we don't accept that all humans have a need for food and shelter and to avoid pain, there is no reason why we couldn't claim that torture could be acceptable to us if only we were "appropriately acculturated". Even in expounding his anti-essentialism Rorty implicitly relies on a concept of human nature. He points out that the use of language differentiates us from other animals. Yet the fact that we use language whilst other animals don't must certainly be based on a common human biological capacity. That is unless he, as Geras points out, is suggesting that the only reason other animals don't read Heidegger is because they are not properly socialised! In common with many, though not all, of the postmodernist ilk, Rorty does not hold to the reactionary politics which such a philosophical position could be used to justify. He tends to identify with most progressive causes. It is simply that he doesn't, in the end, take his philosophical assertions seriously. Geras characterises Rorty's style of argument with a quote from J.L. Austin: "There's the bit where you say it and the bit where you take it back". The assertions that there is no reality behind the language we use and that humans have nothing in common outside common culture, are merely rhetorical constructions designed for maximum shock effect.