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.Takeit or leave it. The reader, then, is left free to choosewhether, for private purposes, he wants to talk the wayRichard Rorty talks.It is a way that is, in the words of theCure de Torcy,  overflowing with sheer self-appreciation,and for that reason, among others, it is, for all its charm-ing turns, aesthetically unattractive.As Rorty rightly re-minds us, there is a closer connection than is usuallythought between the aesthetic and the moral.Rorty hastold us why he talks the way he does in the only way thathis ironism allows him to tell us, namely, autobiograph-ically.Finally, his only subject is himself, as he wouldpersuade us that our only subject is our selves.He hopesthat we will find his talk about himself engaging.It doesseem to come down to being a matter of taste.As Rortyin principle cannot remind us, but other vocabularies doremind us, there are also connections between the aes-thetic, the moral, and the true.All three enter into one sresponse to Rorty s effort to so severely limit the subjectmatter for authentic conversation.In addition, and despite his subordination of thepublic to the private, Rorty s final justification for hisway of talking is thoroughly public in nature because it1580465013678_Neuhaus.qxd:5.5x8.25sam.qxd 1/9/09 1:16 PM Page 159An Age of Ironyis the best way to sustain the liberal democracy that he,along with most of us, favors.We have had occasion topoint out some of the ways in which Rorty s ironist vo-cabulary fails in precisely that task, for it can neitherprovide a public language for the citizens of such a de-mocracy, nor contend intellectually against the enemiesof democracy, nor transmit the reasons for democracy tothe next generation.Rorty s public justification of ironicliberalism thus fails on its own stated terms.So now we have followed Rorty s advice and askedhim,  Why do you talk that way? We have talked abouthim and to him in the present tense, as though he is pre-sent as a partner in conversation, for he obviously in-tended to continue speaking through his writings.Wehave listened carefully to what he has to say, and it istime to follow his advice again; it is time to change thesubject.But not before we note that for Richard Rorty, too,the subject was finally and abruptly changed, and in amanner most unoriginal.Told that he had inoperablepancreatic cancer, he wrote an essay,  Fire of Life, thatwas published in the November 2007 issue of Poetrymagazine several months after his death.Rorty hadoften written that, at the end of a successful life in whichone has achieved his  final vocabulary, one would beable to say with Nietzsche,  Thus I willed it!But now the subject had changed.In  Fire of Life,the fires of individual self-creation are reduced to em-bers, if not ashes.He writes that he has been askedwhether, in the face of death, he finds anything that hehas read to be of any use.Yes, he answers, a few poemsthat he describes as  old chestnuts. He found himself1590465013678_Neuhaus.qxd:5.5x8.25sam.qxd 1/9/09 1:16 PM Page 160American Babylonoddly cheered by the lines of Swinburne s  Garden ofProsperine :We thank with brief thanksgivingWhatever gods may beThat no life lives for ever;That dead men rise up never;That even the weariest riverWinds somewhere safe to sea.It is a piece of embarrassingly sentimental doggerel.It ishard to know why that would have been cheering, even oddly cheering, unless it is the wan hope that the finalvocabulary that is oneself is somehow part of the riverthat is winding somewhere somewhere safe, some-where free at last from used vocabularies.In this mostunoriginal hope, he will, perhaps, be protected fromunoriginality. I would have lived more fully, writes RichardRorty in that final essay,  if I had been able to rattleoff more old chestnuts just as I would have if I hadmade more close friends.Cultures with richer vocabu-laries are more fully human farther removed from thebeasts than those with poorer ones; individual menand women are more fully human when their memoriesare amply stocked with verses. A few more verses, a fewmore close friends.The former were amply available.The making of close friends, one might surmise, is noteasy when all relationships are viewed as instrumental tothe creation of the final vocabulary that is the liberal iro-nist s eschatological hope of becoming an unprece-dented self.1600465013678_Neuhaus.qxd:5.5x8.25sam.qxd 1/9/09 1:16 PM Page 161An Age of IronyFor all the intelligence and learning, for all the liter-ary grace, for all the personal charm, one must askwhether Mr.Rorty s project is an advance over the bal-lad of Narcissus made popular by Frank Sinatra so manyyears ago,  I Did It My Way [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]