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The Resource Achieving our country : leftist thought in twentieth-century America, Richard Rorty

Achieving our country : leftist thought in twentieth-century America, Richard Rorty

Creator
Author
Summary
Must the sins of America's past poison its hope for the future? Lately the American Left, withdrawing into the Ivied halls of academe to rue the nation's shame, has answered yes in both word and deed. In this book, a philosopher challenges this lost generation of the Left to understand the role it might play in the great tradition of democratic intellectual labor that started with writers like Walt Whitman and John Dewey. How have national pride and American patriotism come to seem an endorsement of atrocities -- from slavery to the slaughter of Native Americans, from the rape of ancient forests to the Vietnam War? Achieving Our Country traces the sources of this debilitating mentality of shame in the Left, as well as the harm it does to its proponents and to the country. At the center of this history is the conflict between the Old Left and the New that arose during the Vietnam War era. Richard Rorty describes how the paradoxical victory of the antiwar movement, ushering in the Nixon years, encouraged a disillusioned generation of intellectuals to pursue "High Theory" at the expense of considering the place of ideas in our common life. In this turn to theory, Rorty sees a retreat from the secularism and pragmatism championed by Dewey and Whitman, and he decries the tendency of the heirs of the New Left to theorize about the United States from a distance instead of participating in the civic work of shaping our national future
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Edition
First Harvard University Press paperback edition.
Extent
159 pages
Isbn
9780674003125
Instance
Label
Achieving our country : leftist thought in twentieth-century America
Title
Achieving our country
Title remainder
leftist thought in twentieth-century America
Statement of responsibility
Richard Rorty
Creator
Author
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
Must the sins of America's past poison its hope for the future? Lately the American Left, withdrawing into the Ivied halls of academe to rue the nation's shame, has answered yes in both word and deed. In this book, a philosopher challenges this lost generation of the Left to understand the role it might play in the great tradition of democratic intellectual labor that started with writers like Walt Whitman and John Dewey. How have national pride and American patriotism come to seem an endorsement of atrocities -- from slavery to the slaughter of Native Americans, from the rape of ancient forests to the Vietnam War? Achieving Our Country traces the sources of this debilitating mentality of shame in the Left, as well as the harm it does to its proponents and to the country. At the center of this history is the conflict between the Old Left and the New that arose during the Vietnam War era. Richard Rorty describes how the paradoxical victory of the antiwar movement, ushering in the Nixon years, encouraged a disillusioned generation of intellectuals to pursue "High Theory" at the expense of considering the place of ideas in our common life. In this turn to theory, Rorty sees a retreat from the secularism and pragmatism championed by Dewey and Whitman, and he decries the tendency of the heirs of the New Left to theorize about the United States from a distance instead of participating in the civic work of shaping our national future
Member of
Cataloging source
SVW
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Rorty, Richard
Dewey number
320.513
Index
index present
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
Series statement
The William E. Massey, Sr. lectures in the history of American civilization
Series volume
1997
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • Radicalism
  • Radicals
  • Right and left (Political science)
  • Radicalism
  • Radicals
  • Right and left (Political science)
  • United States
Label
Achieving our country : leftist thought in twentieth-century America, Richard Rorty
Instantiates
Publication
Copyright
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 141-151) and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Control code
1728566
Dimensions
21 cm.
Edition
First Harvard University Press paperback edition.
Extent
159 pages
Isbn
9780674003125
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • n
System control number
  • (Sirsi) i9780674003125
  • (OCoLC)44896738
Label
Achieving our country : leftist thought in twentieth-century America, Richard Rorty
Publication
Copyright
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 141-151) and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Control code
1728566
Dimensions
21 cm.
Edition
First Harvard University Press paperback edition.
Extent
159 pages
Isbn
9780674003125
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • n
System control number
  • (Sirsi) i9780674003125
  • (OCoLC)44896738

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