Hello, pals!
I have no new writing to share, or at least, no new writing that’s yet made its way onto a public platform. What I do have is an odd little proposal that will in all likelihood appeal to absolutely no one. Nonetheless, here it is, for your delectation, or not. These days, I have no business doing anything but writing the many essays I’m being paid to write, some large number of them for, uh, the two books I am supposed to produce; in fact, I’m quite behind on a number of things, owing to the whole cross-country moving ordeal (which is ongoing, since I don’t have, e.g., a bed yet). But I’ve been waylaid by fighting (of the pleasant, vivifying variety) with someone who is convinced that the work of Alastair MacIntyre represents a compelling—or, minimally, cogent—challenge to liberalism. Being an inveterate Rawlsian (which is not to say I’m not a “leftist” in some sense, since as everyone knows, Rawls is a socialist; duh!), I am extremely skeptical; being a person who has read 0 words of MacIntyre until 3 days ago, I don’t really have the standing to object, not that this has ever stopped me from objecting vociferously in the past. Anyway, the “upshot,” as analytic philosophers always say, kind of hideously, is that I am going to read After Virtue, and I am going to read it aggressively. I am considering writing mini-essays documenting my reactions (at this stage, my reactions consist mostly of outraged objections) in the wake of each several-chapter installment. These missives will probably be more in the staccato style of philosophy papers than in the softer style of book reviews; my hope is that some of their content will apply more broadly and therefore serve, mutatis mutandis, as a sort of response to communitarian critiques of liberalism more generally (not that anyone needs those, since communitarianism is totally not responsive to liberalism, obvi). Or maybe I’ll have some kind of conversation experience and begin to believe all value is socially constituted or something? Idk. Stay tuned. Anyway, my question is, would you pay to read a “A Liberal Reads Macintyre Skeptically” series? A normal person probably would not, but maybe you are not normal? Let me know, and if 5+ of you *would* pay, I will do it. If not I will read MacIntyre more hastily, and maybe a bit less enjoyably, in private. (Except no one is ever reaaaaaally doing anything in private because the subject is neverrrrr in isolation from the community that constitutes it!!!! So they tell me.)
Sure, why not?
I’ll pay:)