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- Title
The Unhappy Liberal: Critical Theory without Cultural Dopes.
- Authors
Kelly, Terrence
- Abstract
This article presents information related to critical theory without cultural dopes. Social and political thought has been increasingly littered with proclamations of the "end of ideology" and the beginning of--something else: the triumph of the free market, a triumph of liberalism and so on. For instance writer Richard Rorty's position on ideology is typical of this "post-ideological" ethos. Taking up a Rawlsian shovel, Rorty buries ideology by arguing that because liberal societies are founded on widespread egalitarian intuitions about fairness, citizens of such societies already accept those moral principles which invalidate various forms of injustice. Paradoxically, such agents often explicitly acknowledge that their unjust practices violate legitimate principles of justice. Women who knowingly accept discrimination in the home and whites who accept the principle of integration while fleeing to the suburbs are typical examples of agents in liberal societies who already accept norms which invalidate their own practices. Such agents are not necessarily under the sway of systematic false beliefs, traditions, or world views that unconsciously legitimate forms of injustice.
- Subjects
CRITICAL theory; IDEOLOGY; FREE enterprise; SOCIETIES; INTUITION; JUSTICE; DISCRIMINATION (Sociology)
- Publication
Constellations: An International Journal of Critical & Democratic Theory, 2000, Vol 7, Issue 3, p372
- ISSN
1351-0487
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/1467-8675.00194