Rethinking Redemption in Modernity

By Tracy Ann Llanera

In his tribute article for Richard Rorty in 2008, Richard Bernstein describes Rorty's corpus of writings as stirred by the singular force of the maxim that "there is nothing that we can rely on but ourselves and our fellow human beings."1 It strikes one curious, then, why Rorty would capitalize on the religiously-laden idea of "redemption" in his later essays. 2 In 2001, Rorty published "Redemption from Egotism: James and Proust as Spiritual Exercises" as a response to Harold Bloom's literary criticism and rejoinder to Martha Nussbaum's literary ethics. In the text, Rorty in particular attacks what he calls egotists, or self-righteous individuals. Egotists believe that they possess all the necessary skills to deliberate the demands of personal and social situations. They are close-minded in their interpretations and usually fail to identify with pain, humiliation, and suffering beyond their own context. Not only do they find it difficult to place themselves in the shoes of others, but they often resist from doing so, believing that they have the divine commandments of a religious tradition or the categorical imperatives of practical ethics to justify their values and choices. Egotism, for Rorty, is a human character that we must correct, and he thinks that literature can help cure us of the rigidity and unkindness that this behavior causes.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1835203736
• ISBN13: 9781835203736
• Release Date: July 2023
• Publisher: Abhimanyuhb2
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"