Coming to terms – and action?

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Evers Ridgely C." <rce () evers org>
> Date: November 19, 2016 at 2:12:51 PM EST
> To: Farber David <dave () farber net>
> Subject: Coming to terms – and action?
>
> Dave,
>
> For IP, if you wish (though I know it's a bit off-topic).
>
> There are any number of articles attempting to explain the recent election, but there are two I've found to be worthy 
> reads for people who (like me) are perplexed and disturbed by the results.
>
> The first is David Remnick's good piece in the most recent New Yorker, "Obama Reckons with a Trump Presidency."  
> Remnick cites Richard Rorty’s 1998 book, “Achieving Our Country." 
>
> <snip>
> Rorty, a left-leaning philosopher, who died in 2007, predicted that the neglected working class would not tolerate 
> its marginalization for long. "Something will crack," he wrote:  "The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the 
> system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for—someone 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. . . . One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past forty years by 
> black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into 
> fashion. . . . All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by 
> college graduates will find an outlet."
> </snip>
>
> The other is from the Harvard Business Review, "What So Many People Don't Get About the U.S. Working Class."
>
> Fifty years ago, many (including me) protested actively and vigorously in favor of civil rights and against the 
> Vietnam war.  It will be interesting to see how many people do so now, when the stakes are much higher.
>
> Best,
>
> –Ridge



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