Where Liberals are “Stuck,” What Conservatives Get Right
Reflections on the American Tradition with Richard Rorty
I recently dove deep into the work of philosopher Richard Rorty and I’ll be making reference to him in this and future content. In one of his essays, Rorty describes liberals as being “stuck,” as finding themselves in a philosophical bind. Rorty is partly speaking to “liberals” as opposed to “conservatives” in the American political context, but it applies to “liberalism” in general, which includes all parties in American society. Rorty charts a path beyond this bind, and it is one that I will argue the ongoing conservative movement for “American Classical Education” gets right (with some significant caveats). To be clear, I wrote the outline for this episode in mid-October; it is not an analysis of the election, though it absolutely pertains to the unexpected support for the anti-liberal candidate among Gen-Z men and from typically liberal-leaning communities.
A little about Rorty: he died in 2007, after a long career as a writer and political commentator. His philosophical interests early in his career concerned traditional elements of philosophy, epistemology or “how we as humans know.” After establishing himself as a philosopher, Rorty built upon his research to argue for “Neopragmatism,” or an updated version of a philosophy distinctly forged in American society in the 19th and early 20th centuries. American pragmatism in the nineteenth century, described by American thinkers like William James, Charles Sanders Pierce, and Walt Whitman reflected the unique American culture forming in America’s democratic society—a culture developing in a spirit of freedom unfettered by European historical traditions. Rorty updates pragmatism for the late 20th century, in an era still coming to terms with the intellectual departure from Enlightenment rationalism.
Let’s start with the main idea. It’s a bit complicated and includes some jargon, but stick with me – I’ll give a simpler summary and outline some key points. In an essay published in his book Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth, Rorty explains that the liberal commitment to Enlightenment rationalism produces a skepticism toward “ethnocentrism” or “cultural bias,” meaning the defining of “truth” according to cultural commitments rather than reason alone. “Enlightenment rationalism” refers to the emphasis of modern philosophy on the use of reason alone as the source of truth—which, as we’ve seen in previous episodes, most starkly conflicts with the “cultural bias” of religious faith and tradition. The problem, for liberals, arises when the skepticism toward “cultural bias” is applied not just to supposed “superstitions” but to the similarly unprovable commitment to an individual human being’s essence or soul which is endowed with inviolable rights. Rorty says:
“Liberals who are both connoisseurs of diversity and Enlightenment rationalists cannot get out of this bind. Their rationalism commits them to making sense of the distinction between rational judgment and cultural bias. Their liberalism forces them to call any doubts about human equality a result of irrational bias. Yet their connoisseurship forces them to realize that most of the globe’s inhabitants simply do not believe in human equality, that such a belief is a Western eccentricity. Since they think it would be shockingly ethnocentric to say ‘So what? We Western liberals do believe in it, and so much the better for us.’ they are stuck.” (O,R,T, 207).
Liberals are “stuck” because rationalism, the commitment to reason alone through scientific inquiry, does not (and arguably cannot) determine that human beings “are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”
This is the key point: the same philosophical arguments that call into question the existence of a Creator also call into question the existence of individual human rights.
From the perspective of rationalism, it is impossible to prove the truth of Christianity versus Islam versus Astrology; it is also impossible to prove the truth of individual freedom versus genetic or biological determinism (of spiritual, cultural, or racial varieties). To argue for individual freedom, therefore, is to fall prey to “ethnocentrism,” to violate reason by claiming that your tradition or culture is Truth and that others are therefore rationally obligated to follow your culture. To avoid being “ethnocentric,” therefore, liberals open themselves to all other cultures (as connoisseurs of diversity), and take fundamentally critical positions against their own. Liberals are “stuck” with this choice: either irrational ethnocentrism or rational relativism.
This is the problem to which Rorty’s Neopragmatism responds. His solution is already introduced in the previous quote, so we’ll return to part of it:
“Since they think it would be shockingly ethnocentric to say ‘So what? We Western liberals do believe in it, and so much the better for us.’ they are stuck. Anti-anti-ethnocentrists suggest that liberals should say exactly that, and that they should simply drop the distinction between rational judgment and cultural bias” (O,R,T, 207).
Rorty rejects both “ethnocentrism” and relativism through what he describes as “anti-anti-ethnocentrism.” To “drop the distinction between rational judgment and cultural bias” means that we recognize this rational conclusion: there is no escape from “cultural bias.” He uses the language of a “skyhook,” some kind of absolute position that would prove beyond any rational doubt that our culture is Truth. If you recall our episode on the Civil War as a Theological Crisis, this is the same problem described in that crisis: the Bible served as a “skyhook,” as a guide for determining with absolute and “self-evident” authority what is true and morally good. The questions of slavery and race collapsed that shared vision; who could prove, absolutely and beyond all rational doubt, that their interpretation of the Bible was Truth? As we saw, it was not solved through rational argument, but through war. Anti-anti-ethnocentrism rejects the claim to a “skyhook,” to the absolute and “self-evident” authority of one’s culture over all others. Nevertheless, this does not entail that you reject your culture – that’s the “anti-anti–” part.
This is what conservatives, especially with the movement for “American Classical Education” get right: they embrace American liberal democracy as a tradition. This is partly due to the fact that conservatives retain a (sometimes tentative) commitment to religion. Conservatives have no problem echoing Rorty’s suggestion of saying “‘So what? We Western liberals do believe in it, and so much the better for us.’” So what if I cannot prove the absolute rationality of my culture—neither can anyone else. If we want our society to continue, if we want to pass this tradition on because it adds something of value to the world, then we have to teach it to the next generation. What we teach is still “anti-anti-ethnocentric”: we accept our “bias” toward our culture, but a big part of that culture is skepticism toward ethnocentrism. We can question and criticize aspects of our society—to better realize its vision of justice and freedom—because that criticism itself is one of our tradition’s values. The trouble with the conservative movement for American Classical Education (and here’s the significant caveat) is that it doesn’t share Rorty’s sense of “anti-anti-ethnocentrism,” and therefore veers toward a Christian, Anglo-Saxon, or racially White ethnocentrism—the traditional American “skyhooks.” I ran into this firsthand, and it’s a real problem, but it doesn’t take away that they’re getting something right. It’s also a problem that can be solved if people of one political persuasion are not defining the tradition alone.
So what do we do with this? For liberals, it means that you have to take your own tradition seriously. You cannot present only criticism and expect anyone to embrace it. We cannot teach the next generation about American liberal democracy through a wholly critical lens—that will only lead to the generation abandoning the tradition to others which do not accept individual freedom and the toleration of difference in society. For conservatives, the majority of whom do not embrace the tenets of Christian Nationalism, I ask you to push back against the attempts to establish ethnocentrism. I say this as a Baptist: for much of American history, this denomination stood for religious freedom. We did not want someone else’s interpretation of the Bible to be forced on us, so we refused to force our interpretation on others. We sought to be American, Christians—our faith guided our ethics and our public involvement, but the two remain distinct. We were not Christian Nationalists, and we opposed those who sought to make it so.
We may find common ground as liberals and conservatives, but it’s a conversation we simply must have together. If we stop defining ourselves by criticism—of American society, of non-Christians, of immigrants—if we stop the pursuit of ideological, spiritual, or ethnic purity, what are we left with? It seems like we all have an awful lot to say about what we’re against, but what are we for?
What is our American tradition? What do we stand for? This is the conversation we desperately need to have, and I invite you to have it with me—especially if you disagree with me.