VirusHead - Mutating bits of contagious discourse, because language is a virus.

Richard Rorty has died.

Rorty had an uncanny ability to stare into the post-modern abyss, in which nothing is grounded in the divine or universal, and yet somehow, some way, find a kind of practical empathy that could serve as a beacon in the face of nihilism, authoritarianism and cruelty.

Yes.

Richard Rorty helped me to understand that an ethics based on universals might be neither kind nor accurate to human experience. He offered some possible alternative methods. I had minor quarrels with some of his ideas, but he was an important figure in my education. It turns out that he was a staunch progressive Democrat, too. That follows.

And another one gone, and another one gone.

Another one bites the dust.