If you had to pick one of the two who would you choose?  Gut reaction.  Don’t overthink it.

A brief discussion of Lasch v. Rorty here.  No, I haven’t read Scialabba‘s book.  Yeselson summarizing Scialabba:

Pages 167-168 in Scialabba’s book, in which he channels Lasch channeling Adam Smith and other great thinkers of the Enlightenment, distills Lasch’s long argument and digressions to its essence. In short, secularization, the division of labor, the championing of individuation leads to mobility, intellectual freedom, scientific invention, material progress (good), but also destruction of community, worker alienation, contempt for natural world, and economic instability (bad).

I wonder though to what extent division of labor, scientific invention and material progress are inextricably tied to destruction of community, worker alienation, economic instability and contempt for the natural world.  It’s been >15 years since I read Lasch in detail so perhaps I’m projecting my own thoughts onto him but my recollection is that he saw the linkage and it made him uncomfortable.

While I’ve appreciated the brief excerpts of Rorty’s writing that I’ve been exposed to I didn’t care for Take Care of Freedom and Truth Will Take Care of Itself.   Can’t recall the details of why though.  If I interpret the title literally, I think he’s got it backwards.  Perhaps that was it.

I think Lasch got some very important things wrong when it came to translating his philosophy into recommended actions – specifically, he failed to appreciate that equal opportunity for women and same-sex relationships could stabilize communities rather than destabilize them.  That noted, I’ve found his writing more valuable than I’ve found Rorty’s.