3. Tenderness as the Norm

In this chapter, I elaborate Richard Rorty’s idea of agential pain by directly relating it to recent developments in critical social epistemology and Cora Diamond’s framework for making sense of what it is to lose concepts. Focusing on Rorty’s reflections on 1984, I contend that if one takes Rorty’s concerns about cruelty to their logical conclusion, doing so puts pressure on Rorty’s ‘shallow’ centrism. For, if cruelty towards agents is evocative of modern institutional design, then, contra Rorty’s own flippant dismissal of Marx-inspired political theory, radical change is required to not better cope with but overcome the status quo.