Beneath the Southern Cross

 

Mr. Rorty and his Fellow Animals

by Olavo de Carvalho

Olavo de Carvalho is a Brazilian philosopher and an exponent of Aristotle and Eric Voegelin. He presently lives in the United States where he writes and teaches. His commentaries fill several volumes. The following is taken from O Imbecil Coletivo (The Collective Imbecile), and was translated into English by Pedro Sette Câmara. His latest book is Maquiavel, ou a Confusão Demoníaca, a study of Machiavelli.

"Error speaks with a double voice, one proclaiming the false and the other denying it; it is a dispute of yes and no, called contradiction . . . Error is condemned, not by the mouth of the judge, but ex ore suo."

 —Benedetto Croce       

 

"Philosophy originated from the attempt to escape to a world in which nothing changed. Plato, who founded this field of culture we today call 'philosophy', believed the difference between past and future to be minimal." Thus begins the full-page article Mr. Richard Rorty published in Folha de São Paulo on March 3, 1994.¹

 

Well, when I started working in journalism, more than thirty years ago, such a paragraph would be mercilessly cut off at the copydesk. They also would not miss the opportunity to send the author a note such as follows: "But how, smarty boy, could Plato so anxiously desire to escape to a world of changeless stability, since in this world itself he did not see any big difference between past and future?"

 

Today, flagrant nonsense like this is printed as a deep manifestation of philosophical thought, and nobody from the copydesk is there to say that that is not acceptable even as would-be journalism..

 

 

 

Besides starting his article with such obvious nonsense, Mr. Rorty intends to use it as the basis for conclusions which constitute an assault on the most elementary historical truths. So he continues: "It was only when they began to take history and time seriously that philosophers replaced their desire to know another world with hopes for the future of this world. The first attempt to consider time seriously was with Hegel."

 

To begin with, it is widely known that Plato, like all the Greek philosophers, did see an immense difference between past and future: if the very fact of change did not seem to him worthy of attention, he would not make any effort to discover a changeless pattern behind the fleetingness of things.

 

Second. The preoccupation with "the future of this world" was a strong characteristic of Plato's project, which was rather the work of a social and political reformer than of a pure contemplative theoretician.

 

Third. To place the philosophy of Hegel at the beginning of the preoccupation with history and time is to jump over two millennia of Christianity, a religion which differentiated itself from the Greek understanding of the world precisely because of its emphasis on the temporal and historical character of human life–and this is already clear enough in St. Augustine.

 

Fourth. What is the reason for supposing there is a contradiction between a concern with history and the desire for eternity, when it is precisely the inseparable union of both these topics that constitutes the fundamental inspiration of Hegel himself?

 

Fifth. When Mr. Rorty interprets the desire for eternity as an "escape" or a fleeing, he's just playing a word game, and one that's easily reversible: the impulse to revolutionize the world and accelerate historical change can just as well be interpreted as a form of hübrys, of alienated agitation, of an attempted escape from realities that are permanent and ineluctable, such as death, physical frailty, the ignorance of our ultimate destiny etc. 

 

Such reductionist interpretations bear no more than a rhetorical value, if even that. To present them as unquestionable givens is not an honest procedure.

 

Falsifying Both Hegel and Darwin 

 

Grounded on all these assumptions, Mr. Rorty finishes the article's opening paragraph stating that "the combined influence of Hegel and Darwin took philosophy away from the question "What are we?" and brought it to "What can we become?" This pompous historical generalization denies the reader the information that, for Hegel, these two questions were rigorously the same–"Wesen ist was gewesen ist."

 

Besides this, the Jena philosopher was not distancing himself from Greek thought, but only following the logical development of Aristotle, according to whom the essence of a being is not its static form considered at a given moment of time, but the purpose underlying  its development. Mr. Rorty also leaves out that Darwin never said a word about "what we are" or "what can we become," but was only interested in "what we were." Thus, he mistakes the theory of evolution with evolutionist ideology, which began with the work of Spencer and not Darwin.

 

In a single paragraph, there are so many absurd implications that maybe it is the shock of  multiple falsehoods rapidly thrown at him that makes the reader dizzy and incapable of realising he's being taken in by a cheap impostor, disguised as a philosopher by  the promoters of intellectual fashion.

 

 

Language as the Means to Power

 

But I do not believe Mr. Rorty writes likes this due to sheer stupidity. He knows he's lying–and the secret behind the fascination he exerts over hordes of ambitious students consists precisely in that, disbelieving any truth, they envy the power of telling good lies. There're a lot of people dreaming of becoming Mr. Rorty when they grow up.

 

But, do you really want to know who this man is? Do you wish to have an idea of how ridiculous it is to honor him as a philosopher? Going a little beyond what he said in the newspaper, let's follow a brief examination of his more general concepts.

 

"Language is not an image of reality," Mr. Rorty assures us (he being both a pragmatist and an anti-Platonic philosopher). Should we interpret this sentence in the sense Mr. Rorty calls "Platonic," that is, as a denial of an attribute to one substance?  That would be contradictory: a language that is not an image of reality cannot give us a real image of its relations with reality. Therefore, the sentence must be interpreted pragmatically: it does not affirm anything about language, but only indicates the intention to use it in a certain way.

 

The main thesis of Mr. Rorty's thought is a declaration of his own intentions. For Mr. Rorty, the sentence "language is not an image of reality" rigorously means this and nothing else: "I, Richard Rorty, am firmly decided to not use language as an image of reality." It is a kind of unanswerable argument: an expression of someone's will cannot be logically refuted. Therefore, there is nothing to debate: keeping within the limits of decency and law, Mr. Rorty can use language as he may wish.

 

The problem appears when he tries to make us use language exactly as does he. He states that language is not a representation of reality, but rather a set of tools invented by man in order to accomplish his desires.

 

But this is a false alternative. A man may well desire to use this tool to represent reality. It seems that Plato desired precisely this. But Mr. Rorty denies that men have other desires than seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.  That some declare to desire something else must be very painful to him, for otherwise, there would be no pragmatically valid explanation for the effort he makes to change the conversation.

 

Given that it is impossible to deny that people exist who insist language represents reality, the pragmatist will perhaps say that those who insist language represents reality are moved by the desire to avoid pain as much as those who prefer to create fantasies; but this objection will have shown precisely that these are not things which exclude each other. The Rortyan alternative is false in its own terms. ²

 

Orwellian Control

 

In the face of such a painful realization, Mr. Rorty claims that his philosophy consists in the proposal of a new vocabulary, in which the differences between absolute and relative, natural and artificial, true and false, will be abolished. He acknowledges having no argument to offer in defense of his proposal, since it, "not being able to be expressed in Platonic terminology," is above, or below, the possibility of being proved or refuted. "Therefore", he concludes in the name of all pragmatists, "our efforts of persuasion take the form of a gradual inculcation of new ways of speaking."

 

Mr. Rorty, therefore, does not intend to convince us of the truth of his ideas: he only intends to "gradually inculcate" in us his way of speaking; which, once adopted, will make us gradually forget to ask if what is said is true or false.

But, to gradually inculcate in others a linguistic habit, while at the same time putting it beyond the reach of any rational judgment, is sheer psychological manipulation.  We leave, therefore, the field of philosophical discussion–which Rortyanism rejects as "Platonic"–to enter the field of the subtle imposition of wills achieved through the repetition of slogans and the change of vocabulary. It is what George Orwell has called Newspeak in his novel 1984.

 

This is perhaps the deep and secret reason why–after saying that men are nothing but animals in search of pleasure and reducing language to an instrument for the domination of weak animals by the strong ones–Mr. Rorty still can declare that "we, pragmatists, do not behave like animals," when his words seemed to indicate the exact opposite.

 

The truth is that they are, actually, animal trainers. A man who trains horses does not argue with them: he just makes use of psychological influence in order to "gradually inculcate" in them the habits he desires them to have.

 

Like all trainers, pragmatists are driven by pious intentions: "What matters to us is to create the means for diminishing human suffering." It is with such a noble goal that Mr. Rorty proposes the abolition of the oppositions between false and true, real and apparent, absolute and relative etc.–which concepts, by the way, have been causing great distress to philosophy students–and suggests the universal adoption of his Newspeak.

 

Once such a measure is approved, philosophical debates will cease to be as they once were–that is, an uncomfortable clash of arguments and proofs–and will become an effort to make as pleasurable and pain-free as possible the gradual inculcation of new habits in the minds of the audience. New theories will no longer summon the heavy weapons of logic, but rather employ the delicate instruments of marketing, giving out free gifts to new followers, and putting smiling Playboy bunnies on the covers of academic works.

 

 

Embracing the Meaningless

 

But Mr. Rorty's decisive contribution to the relief of human suffering is his fierce combat against the idea that life may have a meaning. It is understandable that, in a meaningful universe, Mr. Rorty feels very uncomfortable–an outsider, a stranger, just like a non-pragmatist would feel in a meaningless world. However, Mr. Rorty sees no use in arguing with those who do not agree with him. The controversy over the existence or non-existence of a meaning intrinsic to the universe, as he says, "is way too radical to be judged from a neutral point of view." There is no way to argue: all that a man can do is to express his desires.

 

Therefore, once again, Mr. Rorty's thesis is a declaration of intentions: he, Richard Rorty, will do everything within his power in order to guarantee that life makes no sense whatsoever. And he does that, by the way, with great zeal and competence. There are those who believe that it is the lack of meaning that makes human beings unhappy , but Mr Rorty just couldn't care less.

 

He does defends democratic pluralism, the expression of all points of view. Yet, the confrontation of points of view, unable to be arbitrated by any intellectually valid means, becomes a mere competition between desires, which will have as winner the party with the greatest ability to manipulate.

 

Those who know Mr. Rorty personally guarantee he is a really nice person. I believe that. But I doubt he wags his tail. After all, he's not the animal in the story.

 

 

A Postscript

 

Re-reading the proof sheets of this chapter, it occurred to me to remind the reader that a proposal like Mr Rorty's, contains within itself, together with the refusal of rational proof, an effective immunization against any attempt to refute it in the serenity of an academic discussion.

 

"Gradual inculcation" never comes face to face with arguments, but takes advantage of the reader/listener's moments of distraction to surreptitiously induce in him a mood change. Its modus argumentandi is neither the philosopher's nor even the rhetorician's, but that of the neurolinguistic programmer: it works below the threshold of consciousness, after inducing the victim to relax his defenses by means of nice conversation. 

 

Against this kind of action, the only possible defense is to face the enemy in the field he has chosen: that of psychological action. It is not the case, therefore, of arguing, but of unmasking–as in psychoanalysis.

 

During Mr. Rorty's stay in Brazil, I was shocked at his audience's inability to perceive the difference between argumentation and seduction: since Mr. Rorty himself admits there is no use in arguing, what could his apparent arguments be but a diversionist manoeuvre, a trompe l'oeil aimed at entertaining conscious attention while below and beyond any critical supervision, the gradual inculcator discretely manipulates the depths of the distracted audience's souls?

 

But what small-town girl would be foolish enough to try to rid herself of a seducer using polite sentences that would only lengthen the conversation? In order to repel the seducer it is necessary to definitely refuse him any sign of sympathy from the very beginning.

 

These days, one can plainly see the trend to prefer psychological influence over logical argumentation. Such people do not try to appeal to our reason, but to monopolize our attention. Prolonging interminably a conversation which even they do not acknowledge as leading to any intellectually valid results, they gradually involve us in its atmosphere, so that without ever having explicitly agreed with them, we suddenly find ourselves speaking their language, judging by their values, acting according to their rules.

 

Thus they obtain, above or below our superficial disagreement, our most complete obedience. The only way to oppose them is with overt manifestations of antipathy, so they will grasp that what separates us from them is not just some intellectual disagreement, but also an absolute moral rejection–that, in short, we don't like their conversation.

 

The thrust and tone of this analysis, and the book from which it is taken, is meant to be neither capricious nor malicious. Rather, its purpose has been prophylactic: to warn the reader about the seductions of relativistic language and the intellectuals who have built their careers using such trickery.         

 

This is the first of a series of commentaries from Professor de Carvalho we hope to offer in the coming months.

NOTES