4. Actually (Anti-)Utopian?

In this chapter I examine Ruth Levitas’s critique of Rorty as upholding present hegemonies to the point where he is ‘anti-utopian’, by contrasting it with Michael Bacon and Nat Rutherford’s more recent case for Rorty as defined by his utopianism. While I see Rorty’s own vision of a ‘poeticized’ culture as a legitimately utopian, material vision, and bolster this case by drawing a novel distinction between ‘ordinary’ and ‘strong’ utopianism in his work, I maintain that Levitas is right in noticing an intransigence. This has, I suggest, deeper roots in Rortyan philosophy than Bacon and Rutherford acknowledge. If we are to overcome it, and moved towards Rorty’s utopia, we might need to stop keeping irony private and forge explicitly ironist interventions in public issues of today.