EUGENE GOODHEART
231
This is the stance of a private person who lacks the conviction neces–
sary for action in the public sphere. Rorty's ironic tone throughout his
work creates the impression of a mainly comfortable homeowner who
cultivates his own garden. He is content to hunt in the morning, fish in
the afternoon, and write poetry in the evening. Even if he should wish to
enter the public realm, his liberal irony does not provide the necessary
resources: a communicable sense of reality, objective understandings, uni–
versifiable declarations. Openness in Rorty does not have as its aim the
conclusions of mutual understanding.
It
serves simply as a reminder of the
uncertain authority of any and
all
assertions and vocabularies. Whereas he
criticizes religion and metaphysics, Rorty avoids politics. One may
speculate, however, that the reason for his avoidance is similar to the
reason for his aversion to religion and metaphysics. Politics requires the
decisiveness, conviction, and action that the ironist cannot supply. Rorty
cites admiringly a passage from Milan Kundera's reflections about the
novel that apply to religion and ideology but could apply to politics as
well:
[Religions and ideologies] can cope with the novel only by translating
its language of relativity and ambiguity into their own apodictic and
dogmatic discourse. They require that someone be right: either Anna
Karenina is the victim of a narrow-minded tyrant, or Karenina is the
victim of an immoral woman; either Karenina is an innocent man
crushed by an unjust court, or the court represents divine justice and
Karenina is guilty.
The matter, as the deconstructionists say, is undecidable. In the public
realm, one must decide.
If Rorty has anything to offer the public realm, it is the imperative
not to be cruel, a command that applies, of course, to the private realm as
well. That and the word "freedom," which he sets against the claim of
truth. But even where cruelty is concerned, his anti-universalist, anti–
metaphysical bias turns out to be an obstacle to thinking pragmatically
about the hard questions of when and how to diminish cruelty. Questions
about the nature of cruelty are metaphysical and therefore off limits. But
they may have to be addressed if we are to exercise justice. In doing harm
to a murderer or a predatory nation, are we being cruel? Is it possible to
be cruel in order to be kind, as the poet says? Cruelty inflicts pain, but the
infliction of pain is not necessarily cruel. The doctor who cauterizes a
wound wants to heal, not cause, pain. The patient is made to suffer one
kind of pain to prevent a worse kind. I am suggesting that Rorty's well-
