Traditionally, Philosophers have concerned themselves with the problem of truth- what it is possible to know for certain. However, the 20th century saw the adoption of the linguistic turn in many philosophies. Philosophers who accepted the linguistic turn based their philosophies on language, rather than truth, which they saw as a trivial pursuit. One such philosopher, Richard Rorty, developed a pragmatic approach to the linguistic philosophy we call Post-Modernism. His view calls for a halt on the quest for objective truth and a turn to more practical ways of bettering the world through language and pragmatism.

Traditionally, philosophers believed that truth could be found through methods of examination. The traditional belief held that our language corresponded to reality, that our language was a tool we maneuvered to describe that unadulterated reality. The traditional belief was based on the Correspondence Theory - That if words accurately depict reality, the words tell a truth about reality.

Scientists also followed in this domain, supporting that objective truths about the world could be gleaned through estimation and examination of reality. The traditional view had just about all of the linguistic beings on planet earth convinced that we could come to learn truth and that our language was the vessel that we would explore and then express and explain this found truth through.

However, Post-Modernists like Rorty saw the quest for truth as futile. For Rorty, it was obvious that we as subjective beings, could not stumble upon an objective truth, for to do so, we would have to be equipped with the faculties to step outside of ourselves, our powers of examination, and our thought processes to get a glimpse at this objective truth. Since that possibility doesn't exist, Rorty saw that it was a waste of time to try or to pretend to circumvent that ineptitude on our part to be objective.

Rorty saw that we require language to think and process and organize our experiences. At no point can we step outside of our language to examine or process and evaluate our world. And our language, a by-product of various wants and drives that have shaped humanity throughout time, does not appear to bear any direct connection whatsoever to the reality we tend to assume our language describes.

Therefore, even if there is an objective truth, we are bound by the subjective language that encases every aspect of us such that we are powerless to get beyond our existence to that objective truth, even if it exists.

So, for Rorty, it doesn't matter if there is or isn't a truth. Worrying about that end is a waste of time, if there is nothing we can ever know objectively about reality. Rorty says we should evolve and stop living in the darkness of the past that wastes time on such philanders.

For Rorty, what we should concern ourselves with is bettering the way we describe the world, revolutionizing our set of descriptions for the world such that they are more useful to us, further us, get us what we want, and improve us as beings.

New descriptions effect change in us, our language controls us, yet we have the power to alter our language: shift it, crop it, and tailor it to our needs.

New descriptions change how people think, feel, act, speak, live, exist. All we have are descriptions, says Rorty. It's high time we utilized them for good.

Rorty is a big advocate of moral progress. For him, the worst thing a person can be is cruel. He puts forth the model of the Liberal Ironist - A person who seeks to eliminate the cruelty and damage done to others through re-description. Rorty sees that language is the key to moral progress, language and awareness of the suffering of others.

Rorty rejects the traditional religious dogma's approach to moral progress, which follows that moral progress somehow trickles down from some divine injunction; Rorty rejects Kant's approach to moral progress, which follows that moral progress stems from rationality and the universalizing of pain and suffering; Rorty rejects the government's approach to moral progress, which follows that moral progress is spawned from the loins of laws and their abidement and enforcement. For Rorty, these are all diversions, distractions, and anesthetics against a more accurate, more useful path to moral progress: Awareness, empathy and motivation to re-describe.

Rorty sees that people live too much in the dark about the suffering of others. This ignorance leads towards insensitivity towards others and an inability to come up with more accurate descriptions of those suffering which eliminate cruelty. Rorty sees that this ignorance perpetuates cruelty, and cruelty for Rorty is the antithesis to moral progress.

However altruistic Rorty may appear, he ain't no red. He heartily disagrees with communists on the grounds that the less-than-admirable and faulty, incompetent attempts so far have been wholly unsuccessful at eliminating/lessening cruelty, and in fact, the so-called communist regimes have played a part in perpetuating atrocities against fellow mankind.

Rorty feels that we are stuck with Capitalism, but thinks that it's not too shabby a conductor for moral progress. He looks favorably upon the media and creative writers to get descriptions out to the masses, to keep people aware of and informed of the suffering of others, and to keep the masses perpetually conscious of those which are singled out for reification - singled out as others. Rorty sees that the more the masses are infused with descriptions of others, of those who suffer, descriptions that show how much like the rest of humanity these sufferers are, the awareness that stems from that information will yield a reduction and eventual elimination of cruelty to others.

For example, the more Mr. Linn is surrounded by re-descriptions of the plight of his test-taking students, trying near vainly to concentrate on the topics at hand and the general organization of thoughts to be transcribed to paper, while their cruel teacher chomps and smacks his feasting food orifice on crunchy, audible comestibles and his every swallow of every morsel resounds through their tired and morning-muddled brains, perhaps Mr. Linn will gain over time an awareness, an understanding that, although rowdy at times and often slow to grasp his lessons, his students, much like himself, are creatures that appreciate a lack of distraction when they endeavor to philosophize. When he reaches this understanding, says Rorty, There is a heightened possibility that he will cut down on the suffering he infuses his students with in the vociferous gobbling of his crumbly, crispy, toasted bread-products during examinations.

For Rorty, moral progress comes when each of us undertakes this process as an individual - we strive towards a sort of private perfection where we realize that others suffer and that others are affected by our behaviors and actions and the way we actively describe the world. When we singly take it upon ourselves to re-describe the world and keep ourselves aware of the world such that we are all eliminating as much cruelty as we can in our own lives, we are reaching for this private perfection.

Would we be better off if we adopted Rorty's way of thinking about these topics?

If we accept the linguistic turn and agree with Post-Modern thinkers that truth is a futile effort, and language is everything, it seems entirely appropriate that our focus should be on changing the language to benefit us.

It seems wholly reasonably to go along with the pursuit of elimination/lessening of cruelty - I mean, it's as arbitrary a goal to strive for as anything else is, right? But it happens to tickle my fancy because I'd rather live in a world where people are actively seeking betterment and increased pleasure/comfort in their neighbors, as opposed to the zero-sum game everyone…well; most people seem to be playing in this day and age. However, I disagree with Rorty's complete dismissal of communism. Since no socialist state has existed as of yet, we cannot know whether it's viable or not. The closest thing we have seen to a socialist state is perhaps Sweden, where everyone provides for everyone through an extremely high tax rate. There is free education through college for everyone, this eliminates the capitalist dilemma of a division between the rich and the poor as a division between the educated and uneducated. Healthcare and shelter are available to all. I have not studied Sweden's statistics regarding hate crimes or crime in general, but I would hope and guess that cruelty like that is lessened where everyone has an opportunity to get their foot in the door.

I am firmly of the belief that the capitalist society we live in is a dictatorship run by those with the money to write law - The most powerful descriptions in the United States. In a society where the corporations that manufacture the weapons we sell to other countries and the weapons we use on other countries are the same corporations that finance the mainstream media, there will not be unbiased reporting. There will not be useful descriptions of suffering - there will only be the mass broadcast of selective sufferings, useful only to the furthering of the status quo - the backing of the power and wealth being maintained in the hands of the few while the masses suffer and are lent no substantial voice.

In a country where the justice system is maneuvered like a marionette show and can put those with dangerous or revolutionary beliefs behind bars or sentenced to death, there are few useful descriptions and much suffering that the media just won't touch. As long as the corporations and powerful elite have the supreme power to make or break or take the lives of any citizen at or below working class, we are being insulted with descriptions that better the few already bettered beyond excess, that suck more resources out of their surrounding than they can ever use in a lifetime, while the masses are exploited, the masses suffer, working harder than ever just to barely get by, and the masses go unheard and locked into bondage by the language law that confines them, backed by weapons, and paid for by those who have the means to pay for furthering of their power.

History's power has sooner come from the barrel of a gun and the language of those with the guns, germs and steel to bind and silence their others.

If Rorty seeks a society where the plights of the suffering are heard, ringing throughout the corridors of humanity, and that humanity hears the noise with attentive ears and responds to actively rise up and change the status quo to eliminate that heard suffering, the society's going to need to be built on different foundations than those that this country is actually based on. Where propositions to write law are indeed voted upon by those affected by the law as opposed to those who have the means to pay for change - read: when there is proportional representation, not some representative sent out to vote for thousands (who is usually bought and paid for by those with the funds)

The foundations need to be based on a re-description of all people as equal, with certain unalienable rights granted to them and with laws that support the elimination of cruelty and competition, which ultimately fuels cruelty, enforces those laws, and embraces sharing, recognition of others as equals, as aids and supports as opposed to enemies, competitors, or parasites.

Socialism or Democracy as this country has never seen it is a solution I favor. We need a mass of re-descriptions that de-reify all the others that exist in this society and the best place to start is with the balance of power, economic and political. Until we are all coming from an equal ground, a common standing, we are incapable of creating re-descriptions that level anything socially, emotionally, cut down on the suffering of others, because the roots - the foundation of our society- will be tainted with the possibility of injustice and cruelty wherever there is a pre-disposition for a select group to control who's story is told and who's is not.