After The Bubble
Ideas associated with Christianity…….
The idea that reciprocal pity is a sufficient basis for political association,
that there is something wrong with imprisonment without trial,Or the use of war prisoners as slaves,
Or public executions,
Or torture to extract confessions,
Or the use of hostages,
Or the deportation of whole populations….Were once implausible fantasies.
The world may again be ruled by people who lack any such sentiments or ideas. There is nothing in Nature or human nature to prevent this from happening. It may just happen. Socialization goes all the way down. Who gets to do the socializing often is a matter of who manages to kill whom first.
—from Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, page 185
I am finishing the Richard Rorty’s opus. The book is a stunning diagnosis of our condition in the West socially and politically. Rorty is candid to say that a way forward is unclear at this juncture. The above quotation seems to have a bloody realism.
Bubbles burst.
