Word: walzer
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...Michael Walzer...
...Michael Walzer believes that this kind of strategy, which he identifies with thinkers such as John Rawls, is less likely to be used--let alone used successfully--than the second. Asking your roommate to distance herself from her circumstances is, Walzer argues, to ask her to stand "nowhere in particular", a bizarre request which she will rightly find implausible...
...latest book, Walzer endorses a model of social criticism embodied in the second strategy, criticism which recalls to the roommate a past in which she herself was a participant. As Walzer sees it, you are in fact asking her to interpret a story of which both of you are a part; or, more precisely, you are asking that she accept your interpretation or offer a better one. As Walzer puts it, "the experience of moral argument is best understood in the interpretive mode...
...book Walzer gives the communitarian argument a new twist. He likens legitimate social critique to the reading of literature. Just as there may be no definitive best reading of a poem, Walzer argues, so neither you nor your roommate may be able to give the best interpretation of your earlier agreement. But neither the difficulty of textual criticism nor that of resolving exactly what you meant four weeks ago needs prevent your attempt to do just that. when your roommate says,"you think Madonna is disturbing--I can't work without her," you can respond by pointing out the noise...
...Walzer's argument that all social criticism should be akin to the textual interpretation of a book both the critic and criticized party have read is not totally convincing. If Walzer's analogy were complete, for example, we would have to write or co-author as well as read all those books we criticize. Hermeneutics, to give Walzer's interpretive model its formal title, is a fascinating philosophical strategy with a massive history in European thought. But its application to political criticism needs more analysis and justification than has yet been generated...