With this kind of backround, is it any wonder Western philosophy and philosophers (including social and political philosophers) have acquired a reputation for being "out of touch?" In a parody of the Allegory of the Cave, Sophocles' [oops! Aristophanes!] play The Clouds depicts Socrates dropping "pearls of wisdom" from a basket suspended in mid-air.
In A Company of Critics, political philosopher Michael Walzer advances an alternative: connected critics, public intellectuals and other social critics who do not dwell in ivory towers, do not swing suspended from the clouds, do not inhabit ideal speech situations or original positions. They remain in the cave. They render critiques of their society, or reference group as fully committed members of said group. They are internal critics.
Since Walzer is Jewish, it is not surprising that he finds the origin of the tradition of connected social critic, not in ancient Athens, but ancient Israel (and Judah). The Israelite prophets of the Bible are, in Jewish and Christian belief, more than social critics, but social criticism is much of what they do. And though they render critiques of Israel's ancient near eastern neighbors, the major focus of their critiques is Israel (and the divided kingdom of Israel and Judah) herself. The prophets make their criticisms not from outside, but as Israelites, as Jews! The prophets illustrate a major feature of connected social critics: the norms by which they judge are not drawn from abstract thought experiments, but from the shared norms of the tradition under judgment. The prophets reach behind current Israelite (or Judean) practice to the norms of Torah that all claim to honor and ask why they are NOT being honored.
Similarly, in Prague in 1968, during the "Prague Spring" of "Socialism with a Human Face," the reform movement within modern European Communism, a popular graffiti motto--especially after the Soviet tanks rolled in to crush the reform--was "Lenin, come back! Stalin has gone mad!" There is no appeal to capitalism or the West and no appeal to a thought experiment for norms alien to the tradition. The power, the leverage, of the anonymous critique comes from its appeal behind Stalin to Lenin.
Internal critics, connected social critics, revise and reshape shared norms by pointing out contradictions and tensions with other norms. Thus, abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrision or Frederick Douglass or the Grimke sisters, argued against slavery in two ways: with religious arguments drawn from the Christian faith that is given at least lip service by most of the USA (though in a very different fashion from the way their opponents defended slavery by use of the Bible), and with the ideals of democracy drawn from the Enlightenment--going behind the Constitution (which Garrison famously burned one 4th of July) to the Declaration of Independence. The suffragists did the same: Mary Wollenstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women models the kind of arguments made by Enlightenment philosophers Locke and Rousseau. Likewise, Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Declaration of Sentiments for women's rights deliberately echoed Jefferson's wording in The Declaration of Independence. 100 years later, at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. didn't make his argument for racial equality by pointing out the flaws in American democracy, but by asking Americans to "live out their creed that all men[sic] are created equal."
The connected critic does not believe that any society is so far gone that there is nothing valid at all in its moral tradition. S/he begins in the middle of a conversation or an argument and pushes further. Think of the moral heroes of the 20th and 21st C: Gandhi (appealing to British legal tradition and to Christian theology in his arguments with the British, to shared experiences as Indians for his arguments against division between Hindu and Muslim, and to Hindu norms in criticizing the Hindu caste system and especially of having "untouchables"), Camus (criticizing the French conduct in Algeria as a Frenchman), Gloria Steinem, Harvey Milk, Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, Barbara Jordan, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Cornel West. The amazing Malala Youfsazi would never have threatened the Taliban as a Western champion of the education of girls and women. She is a threat because she speaks and writes as a fellow Pakistani and Muslim!
Although Walzer mainly considers public intellectuals, I would argue that a much broader public can practice connected social criticism. Indeed, in my view, Daily Kos is a forum for such connected social criticism. The staff and the volunteer diarists give progressive critiques of U.S. politics and society speakingas Americans and criticize the Democratic Party as Democrats. Far from leading to a boring uniformity (Luntz-like talking points for progressive Dems?), there are fierce fights at DKos. Why? Because, as the Marxist-turned-conservative-Catholic philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre argues, traditions, including moral traditions, are "arguments over time" in part about what does or does not belong in the tradition. Yes, some of the fights are personality driven and some are over policy technicalities and approaches, but many are overprinciples and norms. What constitutes a "better Democrat?" What direction should the Democratic Party take? For what does the Party stand? What changes constitute tactical and strategic moves, adjustments to changing contexts, and what changes embody betrayals, instead? Those are arguments worth having and they are conducted not by fleeing the cave or finding an original position, but by remaining in the cave, i.e., by committed American citizens and Democratic partisans.
I end this diary of praise toward connected social critics with a question: Is Pope Francis a connected critic? Possibly. We usually think of someone on the margins of influence and power, not at the pinnacle of power in his/her world. If someone asked me to name Catholic connected critics, I'd think more readily of Dorothy Day, the Berrigan brothers, Thomas Merton, or the Nuns on the Bus. Usually, a critic who comes to power is tamed, but this needn't be the case. Francis seems more radical as pope than when he was a bishop in Argentina. Yet he also illustrates the fact that a connected critic may be liberal or even radical at some points and defend the conservative view of the tradition at others.
How is he able to get those of us who are not Catholic (including your diarist, a liberal, Anabaptist-type Baptist) to take notice? Why do we listen and read his words with interest--taking him seriously in both our agreements and dissents? In part, I suspect, it's because we realize that he may have more influence than any other religious or moral leader, because of the huge size and global reach of the Catholic Church. But it is also because Francis, in typical Catholic fashion, appeals also to "people of good will and reason," to shared norms NOT dependent on holding all (any?) Catholic doctrinal convictions.
And THAT illustrates the need, especially in our global society, of the connected critic to be cross-cultural, to know enough of views outside her or his own to be able to communicate beyond narrow borders--not by speaking a "moral Esperanto" but by finding shared common ground in overlapping traditions. It helps that, today as perhaps never before, most of us identify with more than one "community of reference" and have been exposed to and influenced by persons and ideas beyond our primary (religious--or a-religious, racial/ethnic/linguistic, national, professional, etc.) community of convictions.
Let the conversations--and arguments--continue.
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