{"id":1758,"date":"2017-07-23T10:51:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-23T10:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/?p=1758"},"modified":"2017-09-04T11:36:25","modified_gmt":"2017-09-04T11:36:25","slug":"poetstrumpphilosophers-reflections-richard-rortys-liberalism-ten-years-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/volume-12-no-3-2017\/conference-proceeding-volume-12-no-3-2017\/poetstrumpphilosophers-reflections-richard-rortys-liberalism-ten-years-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Poets\/Trump\/Philosophers: Reflections on Richard Rorty\u2019s Liberalism, Ten Years after His Death"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\t
\n\n\t\t<\/i><\/span> <\/a>\n\n\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Starting with a prescient 1998 quote on the impending decline of US liberal democracy into right-wing, strong-man-based demagogy, this paper outlines Richard Rorty\u2019s political philosophy, which I believe can help us understand perplexing political trends in today\u2019s political reality well beyond the US alone. Specifically, I tackle three key-terms encapsulating the thrust of Rorty\u2019s political philosophy, i.e. \u201cliberalism of fear\u201d, \u201cbourgeois\u201d and \u201cpostmodernism\u201d. Also, I address a contraposition that explains how Rorty would approach and attempt to defend liberal democracy from contemporary right-wing, strong-man-based degenerations, namely the priority of \u201cpoetry\u201d over \u201cphilosophy\u201d. Essentially, if one wishes to win in the political arena, she must be armed with the most effective rhetorical weaponry, however good, solid and well-argued her political views may be. Finally, some remarks are offered on the role that \u201cphilosophy\u201d can still play within the same arena.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Richard Rorty<\/strong><\/p>\n

Richard Rorty (1931\u20132007) was probably the most famous American philosopher at the end of the last century. As I pen this introduction, ten years after his death, his name has re-appeared on the pages of many newspapers, at least in the Anglophone press, and some aspects of his political thought are going \u2018viral\u2019 across the world-wide-web. We live in the age of Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter, after all. Various passages of his 1998 book, Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America<\/em> (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press), have been \u2018unearthed\u2019 and variously circulated. Among them we read what follows:<\/p>\n

Members of labor unions, and unorganized and unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers\u2014themselves desperately afraid of being downsized\u2014are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else\u2026 At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for\u2014someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots\u2026 Once the strongman takes office, no one can predict what will happen. <\/em>[However, o]ne thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past 40 years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion\u2026 All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet\u2026<\/em> [e.g. in] socially accepted sadism\u2026 directed toward people such as gays and lesbians[.] (ibid., 81ff)<\/p>\n

To past European generations and probably most modern historians, a socio-political picture like the one portrayed above is likely to recall the rise of autocratic demagogues such as Napoleon III or Benito Mussolini. Today, however, this passage sounds like an eerily accurate prediction of the bitter conclusion of triumphant post-Cold-War globalisation and its \u2018inevitable\u2019 sacrifices, epitomised by the rise of Donald Trump. And so it has been taken by media outlets and opinion-makers, e.g. Stephen Metcalf\u2019s 10th<\/sup> January 2017 \u201ccultural comment\u201d for The New Yorker<\/em>, entitled \u201cRichard Rorty\u2019s Philosophical Argument for National Pride<\/a>\u201d and discussing also the media attention received by the passage above.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Donald Trump<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fresh US President and long-time billionaire, Mr Trump won in 2016 a harsh electoral campaign against a seasoned politician, Ms Hillary Clinton, who, it should be noted, was the publicly vocal and politically proactive US First Lady when Rorty\u2019s book was published qua<\/em>, inter alia<\/em>, scathing critique of the increasingly right-wing, free-market policies promoted by the Democratic Party, which Rorty regarded as his own party of choice in the US. Whilst describing the leading 20th<\/sup>-century Democrats, from F.D. Roosevelt to L.B. Johnson, as outright social-democrats, Rorty did not approve of several decisions taken by the Clinton\u2019s administration, such as the controversial 1994 NAFTA agreement with Canada and Mexico and the 1999 repealing of the long-lived Glass-Stegall Act, a child of the Great Depression and a piece of legislation that had limited the systemic threat of unbridled finance (cf. Richard Rorty, \u201cUna filosofia tra conversazione e politica\u201d, interview by Giorgio Baruchello, Iride<\/em>, 11(25), 1998, 457\u201384; translation mine). Those of us who remember the roots and the fruits of the 2008 financial collapse, namely the Great Moderation at one end and the Great Recession at the other, should not find it difficult to realise what momentous consequences the Clintons\u2019 friendliness toward Wall Street has been outpouring. It is in fact in a climate of unresolved under- and un-employment, globalisation-induced economic insecurity, and increasingly strong anti-immigration and anti-establishment feelings that Donald Trump came to prominence qua <\/em>political leader.<\/p>\n

Prominent, if not brazen or simply unusual, were his language and many of his declared stances throughout the electoral campaign of 2016. As recorded and frequently criticised by mainstream media, Mr Trump often: (1) uttered racist, sexist and homophobic slurs; (2) fashioned himself qua<\/em> anti-establishment champion of the impoverished, economically insecure, and primarily white working class of his country; (3) paraded his willingness to cooperate with foreign dictators and political leaders whose human-rights record is far from spotless; and (4) insouciantly condoned words and concepts that make violence, torture included, seemingly acceptable in the public sphere, both domestically and internationally. Evidence of all this is not hard to find. Trump\u2019s electoral speeches are archived and available online<\/a> (cf. also a selection<\/a> of his statements by The Telegraph<\/em>). In power for only few weeks at the time of writing, Trump has already started delivering on his electoral agenda, at least as regards tightening immigration rules in the US, though it is far too soon to pass any trenchant judgment yet. Cruelty, in the shape of \u201csocially accepted sadism\u201d or worse (e.g. extensive warfare), might regain the front stage as a major ingredient in the political life of the world\u2019s sole nuclear super-power, whose 500 and more military sites outside US borders and territories span across most continents, and a fortiori<\/em> in the political life of all countries at large. I write \u201cfront stage\u201d because Trump\u2019s predecessor did not halt, say, police violence in the US or the bombing of the populations of foreign countries by US drones (e.g. Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen), but he never spoke publicly of such issues in as cavalier a manner (concerning the US military foreign sites, cf. Department of Defense, Base Structure Report \u2013 Fiscal Year 2015 Baseline<\/a><\/em>). Bombs may have been dropped throughout the two-term Obama administration, but not verbal ones.<\/p>\n

For all we know, the new US presidency might prove less prone to endorse the highly destructive forms of legally termed humanitarian intervention and politically proclaimed promotion of Western-style democratic institutions seen, say, in 21st<\/sup>-century Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan under George W. Bush and Barak Obama (e.g. military occupation, air raids and killings by remote-controlled drones). On the domestic front, Trump himself might succeed in becoming an effective tribune of the common people, or at least of a large segment of it. Chronically disenfranchised blue-collar Americans might end up enjoying more and better jobs than they have over the previous three decades. Who knows? They might even witness the end of the gross \u2013 when not grotesque \u2013 imbalance in incomes and influence between Wall Street and Main Street that Ronald Reagan\u2019s economic policies kick-started in the 1980s, and that Bill Clinton\u2019s aforementioned abolition of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act definitively entrenched. Rather than christening involuntarily a shantytown, as some of his predecessors did (i.e. post-1929 \u201cHooverville\u201d and post-2008 \u201cBushville\u201d), the name of a flamboyant US billionaire might go down in history for reverting the forceful re-affirmation of patrimonial capitalism that has been occurring in most countries on Earth since the days of Thatcherism. Unlike Obama, Trump might not “stand between [the bankers] and the pitchforks” (Lindsay Ellerson, “Obama to Bankers: I’m Standing ‘Between You and the Pitchforks’<\/a>“, ABC News<\/em>, 7th April 2009). Alternatively, as Rorty suggests in the same foreboding pages of Achieving Our Country<\/em>, the elected \u201cstrongman\u201d will just \u201cmake peace\u201d with \u201cthe international super-rich\u201d and appease the masses via <\/em>jingoistic militarism and charismatic posturing. Time, as always, will tell. Cruelty, whether in the shape of petty humiliation of minorities or military extermination of scores of people, is never too far away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Poets<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cruelty<\/em> matters a lot, at least for Richard Rorty, who championed one specific school of political thought that, in the late 20th<\/sup> century, made this notion central to the understanding of social and political life, claiming that Western liberalism is characterised by a unique abhorrence of cruelty in the public sphere. Called \u201cliberalism of fear\u201d, this school of thought was a theoretical creation of Harvard political scientist Judith Shklar (1928\u20131992), but it is commonly recalled today in connection with Richard Rorty, who was and still is far more famous than Judith Shklar. The quintessence of their political stance is simple to express: \u201cliberals\u2026 think that cruelty is the worst thing we do\u201d (Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity<\/em>, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, 73). Therefore, they draw a clear distinction \u201cbetween cruel military and moral repression and violence, and a self-restraining tolerance that fences in the powerful to protect the freedom and safety of every citizen\u201d (Judith Shklar, Ordinary Vices<\/em>, Cambridge: Belknap, 1984, 237). Liberals opt for the latter option and defend all those institutions (e.g. parliaments, constitutions, human rights, judiciary independence, freedom of the press, etc.) that foster peaceful coexistence over violent oppression, debate over force, individual liberty over State control, and people\u2019s safety over their systemic endangerment.<\/p>\n

Rhetoric<\/em> also matters a lot for Rorty. Ironically, it is of the essence. According to Rorty: \u201cThe principal backup [for liberals] is not philosophy but the arts, which serve to develop and modify a group’s self-image by, for example, apotheosizing its heroes, diabolizing its enemies, mounting dialogues among its members, and refocusing its attention\u201d (\u201cPostmodernist Bourgeois Liberalism\u201d, The Journal of Philosophy<\/em>, 80(10), 1983, 587). The art of rhetoric must be understood in a catholic manner here. In his texts, Rorty would normally speak of \u201carts\u201d, \u201cnarrative\u201d, \u201cpoetry\u201d or \u201cliterature\u201d. What he means, however, is that he does not trust traditional philosophical argument and repeated appeals to reason to do the job. Reason matters, of course. Rigour too. But relevance vis-\u00e0-vis<\/em> the context and the audience is the actual key, hence the ability to persuade that one can attain by reaching people\u2019s hearts as well as their minds, especially when fundamental social values are at issue, rather than the day-to-day activities of tribunals or elected councils. Only in this manner can liberals hope to achieve any progressive aim. Truth does not imply per se<\/em> any victory whatsoever in the public arena; nor does it matter much, in the end. Speaking and writing well in favour of liberal principles and institutions do, instead; they are much more crucial, even if we may not be able to demonstrate once and for all why<\/em> we should prefer liberalism to Nazism or Social Darwinism. As Rorty writes: \u201cWhereas the liberal metaphysician thinks that the good liberal knows certain crucial propositions to be true, the liberal ironist thinks the good liberal has a certain kind of know-how. Whereas he thinks of the high culture of liberalism as centering around theory, she thinks of it as centering around literature (in the older and narrower sense of that term \u2013 plays, poems, and, especially, novels)\u201d (Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity<\/em>, 93).<\/p>\n

Rorty did actually speak of \u201crhetoric\u201d as well, but only occasionally. Nonetheless, it has been argued that, as far as the 20th<\/sup>-century American academic community is concerned, the ancient art of rhetoric regained ground primarily<\/em> thanks to him, pace <\/em>Kenneth Burke\u2019s (1897\u20131993) efforts in this sense since the 1930s. First came the 1979 publication of Richard Rorty\u2019s Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature <\/em>(Princeton: Princeton University Press), by now a widely acknowledged modern classic, which excavated the metaphorical roots of all objectivist, rigorous, scientific and pseudo-scientific terminologies. Then, a series of conferences were held in the mid-1980s at Iowa and Temple Universities, out of which was launched the \u201cProject on the Rhetoric of Inquiry\u201d (POROI). Richard Rorty participated in them and another participant, Herbert W. Simons, credits him with coining at one of the meetings the now-popular slogan \u201cthe rhetorical turn\u201d (The Rhetorical Turn: Invention and Persuasion in the Conduct of Inquiry<\/em>, Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1990, vii).<\/p>\n

Interested in persuading wide audiences rather than producing bullet-proof arguments for academic circles, Rorty declares himself to be candidly partial to \u201cthe Hegelian attempt to defend the institutions and practices of the rich North Atlantic democracies\u2026 [i.e.] \u2018postmodernist bourgeois liberalism\u2019.\u201d (\u201cPostmodernist Bourgeois Liberalism\u201d, 585). As he writes: \u201cI call it \u2018bourgeois\u2019 to emphasize that most of the people I am talking about would have no quarrel with the Marxist claim that a lot of those institutions and practices are possible and justifiable only in certain historical, and especially economic, conditions.\u201d\u00a0(ibid.) Money<\/em> matters too, then. Liberal institutions, high and low, depend upon appropriate material conditions. This is the fundamental insight and theoretical legacy of Marxism, according to Rorty. We must take the \u201cstructure\u201d seriously into account, if we wish to make sense of the \u201csuperstructure\u201d, even if we consider the latter to be partially independent from the former and not fully determined by it, i.e. a sort of mere epiphenomenon. That is why economic insecurity and inequality matter so much in liberal polities, as Donald Trump\u2019s election has further confirmed.<\/p>\n

Rorty\u2019s acknowledment that material conditions are important does not mean that he subscribed to Marxism, Chicago-style liberalism, Randian Objectivism or any fundamental claim about the nature of the human soul and human societies. According to Rorty: \u201cThere is no answer to the question \u2018Why not be cruel?\u2019 \u2013 no noncircular theoretical backup for the belief that cruelty is horrible \u2026 Anybody who thinks that there are well-grounded theoretical answers to this sort of question \u2013 algorithms for resolving moral dilemmas of this sort \u2013 is still, in his heart, a theologian or a metaphysician.\u201d (Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity<\/em>, xv-i). A self-declared champion of American neo-pragmatism, Rorty followed this tradition in believing that \u201cmorality is a matter of\u2026 \u2018we-intentions\u2019\u2026 the core meaning of \u2018immoral action\u2019 [being] \u2018the sort of thing we<\/em> don\u2019t do\u2019.\u201d (ibid., 59) There is no grand narrative; no ultimate vocabulary as Kenneth Burke understood this term, i.e. a theory or discourse capable of ordering all relevant conceptual elements, including apparently conflicting ones, into one synthetic vision, account or system. As Rorty explains: \u201cI use ‘postmodernist’ in a sense given to this term by Jean-Francois Lyotard, who says that the postmodern attitude is that of \u2018distrust of metanarratives,\u2019 narratives which describe or predict the activities of such entities as the noumenal self or the Absolute Spirit or the Proletariat. These meta-narratives are stories which purport to justify loyalty to, or breaks with, certain contemporary communities, but which are neither historical narratives about what these or other communities have done in the past nor scenarios about what they might do in the future.\u201d (\u201cPostmodernist Bourgeois Liberalism\u201d, 585)<\/p>\n

Let me add that, according to Rorty, postmodernism is not relativism: \u201cRelativism certainly is self-refuting, but there is a difference between saying that every community is as good as every other and saying that we have to work out from the networks we are, from the communities with which we presently identify. Post-modernism is no more relativistic than Hilary Putnam’s suggestion that we stop trying for a \u2018God’s-eye view\u2019 and realize that \u2018We can only hope to produce a more rational conception of rationality or a better conception of morality if we operate from within our tradition\u2019.\u201d (ibid., 589) One thing is to say that we can, in theory, set all moral or political options beside one another and state that they all have the same value. Another thing is to say that we cannot do it, because we can only and must operate from within one option at the time, building or burning bridges with the others. The latter being Rorty\u2019s stance on the matter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Philosophers<\/strong><\/p>\n

We are philosophers, scientists, academics. Rational argumentation is our bread and butter. Yet, it is ours<\/em>. It is probably also the judges\u2019, the lawyers, the engineers\u2019 and some others\u2019. It is not theirs<\/em>, though, i.e. \u2018common\u2019 human beings\u2019 at large. Talk to your relatives; your neighbours; the \u2018man of the street\u2019; have a conversation in a bar, shop, or parish hall. Arguments matter, generally, but only to a point. Sometimes, it is plainly futile to even present one and expect it to be listened to, not to mention being taken so seriously as to change the listener\u2019s beliefs. Let us ask ourselves, why do we engage in rational debate? Because we expect it to bear fruit. In other words, we do so under two major assumptions: (1) we can find reasons; and (2) reasons matter. As Rorty once stated: “To take the philosophical ideal of redemptive truth seriously one must believe both that the life that cannot be successfully argued for is not worth living, and that persistent argument will lead all inquirers to the same set of beliefs” (“The Decline of Redemptive Truth and the Rise of a Literary Culture<\/a>“, 2000).<\/p>\n

Perhaps we can find some reasons. Perhaps even good reasons. No final, ultimate reasons can be found, though, according to Rorty, who claims chimeric any conclusive philosophical grounds of agreement that correspond to a universal and unchanging human nature, the essence of things, pure rationality, the hidden structure of historical dialectics, God\u2019s plan for the universe, etc. According to Rorty, when we look deep and hard into ourselves, the most profound things that we can get a glimpse of are the most entrenched prejudices of our own culture, our ethnos<\/em> or, as quoted above, \u201cour tradition\u201d. But this is not everything. Even if there were any such deeper, ultimate reasons, who would listen to them? Some people would. Perhaps a fair amount. Not most human beings, however. Religion, politics, marketing, economic history, psychology and many ordinary experiences bear witness to the limits of human rationality. Albeit not irrational, people are frequently unreasonable, impervious to logical thinking, biased in many ways, and unwilling to reconsider their basic, often deeply engrained and sometimes blissfully unaware assumptions. If this is a plausibly correct assessment of humankind under contemporary democracy, how can liberals win in the public arena? Rorty\u2019s answer is patent: a \u201cturn against theory and toward narrative\u201d (Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity<\/em>, xvi). In other words, rhetoric is needed. A good one, of course, in both content and form.<\/p>\n

As regards the content, Rorty\u2019s own political plans and works show what it should be: the principles and institutions of liberalism. To them, he then adds specific projects that liberals should focus upon (e.g. universal healthcare; cf. \u201cUna filosofia tra conversazione e politica\u201d). As regards the form, that is where \u201cpoets\u201d excel or, as Rorty also calls them, successful \u201cagents of love\u201d (i.e. \u2018missionaries\u2019 reaching non-liberals) and \u201cjustice\u201d (i.e. enforcers of liberal principles within liberal ethnoi; \u201cOn Ethnocentrism\u201d, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth – Philosophical Papers vol. I, <\/em>Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991[1981], 206). Let us learn from them: read good books; watch good films; read good books; practice your communication skills; read good books; engage in your own ethnos\u2019 ongoing moral and political conversation (e.g. by joining a political party, charitable organisation or a trade union); and, to top it all, read good books. There are no ideal Platonic philosopher-kings here; poets are the kingmakers. \u201cPoets\u201d too must be understood in a catholic manner, though. They can be priests, film-makers, propagandists, teachers, political leaders, etc. They may not be able to produce a definitive demonstration of why liberalism is to be preferred and pursued; however, at least for us children of liberal institutions, it is not a serious issue. What really matters is to keep them going; and that is what poets can help us with. What is left for us as philosophers? I have three suggestions:<\/p>\n

(A) We can and, perhaps, should join the ranks of the \u201cagents of love\u201d and \u201cjustice\u201d. Become better at speaking and writing well, and use your skills to fight the good fight\u2014the liberal fight, according to Rorty. Be an engaged intellectual. Be a promoter of democracy in the schools, as the US pragmatist John Dewey (1859\u20131952) had already tried to do and let American teachers do. If you cannot be a leader, help one to emerge. Rorty himself regarded his work as making room for, or paving the road to, greater minds, such as Jacques Derrida (1930\u20132004; cf. \u201cUna conversazione tra filosofia e politica\u201d).<\/p>\n

(B) As Rorty never denied, there are people, a minority of course, who do respond to philosophical arguments; philosophers can still be useful in finding ways \u201cof making political liberalism look good to persons with philosophical tastes” (\u201cOn Ethnocentrism\u201d, 211).<\/p>\n

(C) My personal contribution is that philosophers can provide ideas, social legitimacy and psychological encouragement to poets. In our culture, pace <\/em>Rorty\u2019s \u201cturn against theory\u201d, poets are not expected to give us rational arguments and axiological foundations, whereas philosophers still are. Then, even if such an aim is ultimately utopian and as long as this division of intellectual labour holds in our culture, poets can find things to say and work upon. The rhetorician\u2019s inventio<\/em> and topoi<\/em> can unfold in close contact with the texts by philosophers that they admire and may decide to rely upon. Dante Alighieri had Thomas Aquinas, Ugo Foscolo Condorcet, George Bernard Shaw Friedrich Nietzsche, Luigi Pirandello Henri Bergson, Mahatma Gandhi Lev Tolstoy, James Joyce Giambattista Vico, and Zeitgeist<\/em>\u2019s Peter Joseph John McMurtry. Through their association with established philosophers and philosophies, moreover, the same poets can obtain a higher degree of social acceptance, insofar as their ethnos still acknowledges the special status of philosophers as those members of society who grasp \u2018deeper\u2019 or \u2018higher\u2019 things. Poets themselves may be reassured and sustained in their fights by the knowledge that there are thinkers who, in more analytical and articulate ways, agree with them.<\/p>\n

(A)\u2013(C) may not seem much, prima facie<\/em>, especially if one recalls the Platonic ideal of philosopher-kings; but they are more than enough for a meaningful existence, both personal and professional, in a contemporary liberal ethnos<\/em>, which political leaders like Donald Trump would seem to endanger and, at the same time, reveal to us all \u2013 as sceptical and blas\u00e9 as some of us may have become \u2013 as awfully valuable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Starting with a prescient 1998 quote on the impending decline of US liberal democracy into right-wing, strong-man-based demagogy, this paper outlines Richard Rorty\u2019s political philosophy, which I believe can help us understand perplexing political trends in today\u2019s political reality well beyond the US alone. Specifically, I tackle three key-terms encapsulating the thrust of Rorty\u2019s political philosophy, i.e. \u201cliberalism of fear\u201d, \u201cbourgeois\u201d and \u201cpostmodernism\u201d. Also, I address a contraposition that explains how Rorty would approach and attempt to defend liberal democracy from contemporary right-wing, strong-man-based degenerations, namely the priority of \u201cpoetry\u201d over \u201cphilosophy\u201d. Essentially, if one wishes to win in the political arena, she must be armed with the most effective rhetorical weaponry, however good, solid and well-argued her political views may be. Finally, some remarks are offered on the role that \u201cphilosophy\u201d can still play within the same arena.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":254,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1479],"tags":[1484,108,1483,87,574,247,1480,1482,1481],"coauthors":[990],"class_list":["post-1758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conference-proceeding-volume-12-no-3-2017","tag-bourgeois","tag-crisis","tag-fear","tag-liberalism","tag-postmodernism","tag-rhetoric","tag-rorty","tag-shklar","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1758"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1918,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758\/revisions\/1918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1758"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}