Who are we when we are ‘Us, at Our Best?’

Abstract

Recently, political commentators have taken to characterizing our dystopian present (or near-future) as either Huxleyan or Orwellian. This pairing can be seen as an invitation to reconsider the philosophical distinction between persuasion and force, a distinction the interrogation of which was a career-defining task for Richard Rorty. In this article, I suggest that Rorty’s interrogations, and specifically his claims regarding what it means to think of ourselves, at our best, can help us to gain a firmer grasp on the nature of the dystopian present (or near-future) we inhabit and of which contrasting pictures were offered by Huxley and Orwell.