4 Replies to “Being a pragmatist means never having to say you’re sorry.  Unless it makes sense to do so, that is.”

1. Jeff B. says:

   June 8, 2004 at 2:48 am

   Amazing.  You’re only the second person I’ve ever met to reference Hayden White in any sort of intellectual conversation.  As both a history major and a student of postmodern thought I found White’s historiographic theories both infuriating and fascinating (I remember being one of two people in my class to actually understand what he was driving at…the man does not write to be understood).  How did you chance to encounter his thought?

   You know, you spend so much time these days with elaborate in-jokes that it’s easy to forget the previous scholarly bent of the old Protein Wisdom.  Don’t ever change, dear.

2. MRN says:

   June 8, 2004 at 2:53 am

   Richard at kaisercrack is a cruel, cruel man.  The color scheme and tiny font is one thing, but he compounds that with the strange punctuation and a decidedly spartan use of capital letters.  When you include all of the big words that this subject unfortunately attracts, that was painful to read.

   As for the whole post-modern issue, I agree with your expalantion of July 2002.  If anyone is interested in taking it one or a dozen steps further, I suggest reading Ken Wilber.  His word for this pathologic form of postmodernism is Boomeritis. He explains it very well in the book A Theory of Everything, but not so well (in my opinion) in the novel Boomeritis.  Although some people really enjoyed Boomeritis.

3. Jeff B. says:

   June 8, 2004 at 2:56 am

   Upon further consideration, what I find more fascinating (dismaying, telling, etc…but not unsurprising) is Rorty’s inability to internalize his own philosophy and apply it to his politics.  For a man of such intellectual sophistication (and I agree with his and Richard’s protestations that the postmodern attitude has been misappropriated by people who mistake it for gleeful nihilism), he falls back upon predictable anti-Republican nostrums. So predictable, in fact, that they seem forced: as if he was rather abjectly playing to his appointed Nation audience.

4. Jeff G says:

   June 8, 2004 at 3:12 am

   Introduced to White as grad student in English, then actually sat in on his seminar at Cornell’s School of Criticism and Theory a few years back.  I even taught the Content of the Form a few times (applied it to Ragtime and In Cold Blood, I believe, in a course on narrative theory).

   These days, with only moments available to me in between diaper changes, feedings, and play time, elaborate in-jokes are easier to pull off than disquisitions on poststructuralism, narrative theory, and epistemology. 

   Thankfully, I’ve already written on all that, so I can just refer people to my archives and move on to my next bit.  My goal:  to become an “American Humorist.” I mean, what a great profession to trot out at the class reunion, you know?  Yes.  That’s what I wish to be now.

Comments are closed.