![3D"New](3D"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/nytlogo153x23.gif" "3D\"New")
=20
![3D"Article](3D"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/ads/fox/article-sponsor.gif")
![3D""=20](3D"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/adx/images/ADS/18/63/ad.186333/sdm_aw=)
(Page 2 of 2)
In Mr. L=E9vi-Strauss=92s telling the Caduveo actually take on a = strangely=20 postmodern flavor, shedding the very idea of natural law or constraints. = Even=20 Mr. Rorty might have found his sympathies touched. He once suggested = that=20 science had been established by modern man =93to fill the place once = held by God=94=20 but that it didn=92t merit that position; it should be seen, Mr. Rorty = said, as=20 having the =93same footing=94 as literature or art, and he suggested = that physics=20 and ethics were just differing methods of =93trying to cope.=94 The = Caduveo might=20 have agreed, as long as they were permitted to determine which methods = of coping=20 were used.
![3D""=20](3D"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/06/18/arts/Conn3190.jpg")
=20
Claude L=E9vi-Strauss
But what place would such a society have in a Rortian democratic = landscape?=20 How would they be answered if their claims to divine right and arbitrary = power=20 came in direct conflict with the more embracing arbitrariness of Mr. = Rorty=92s=20 vision?
In reasoning one=92s way into pragmatism, in minimizing the = importance of=20 natural constraints and in dismissing the notion of some larger truth, = the=20 tendency is to assume that as different as we all are, we are at least = prepared=20 to accommodate ourselves to one another. But this is not something the = Caduveo=20 would necessarily have gone along with. Mr. Rorty=92s outline of what he = called=20 =93the utopian possibilities of the future=94 doesn=92t leave much room = for the kind=20 of threat the Caduveo might pose, let alone other threats, still active = in the=20 world.
One tendency of pragmatism might be to so focus on the ways in which =
one=92s=20
own worldview is flawed that trauma is more readily attributed to =
internal=20
failure than to external challenges. In one of his last interviews Mr. =
Rorty=20
recalled the events of 9/11: =93When I heard the news about the twin =
towers, my=20
first thought was: =91Oh, God. Bush will use this the way
If that really was his first thought, it reflects a certain amount of = reluctance to comprehend forces lying beyond the boundaries of his = familiar=20 world, an inability fully to imagine what confrontations over truth = might look=20 like, possibly even a resistance to stepping outside of one=92s skin or = mental=20 habits.
But in this too the Caduveo example may be suggestive. As Mr. = L=E9vi-Strauss=20 points out, neighboring Brazilian tribes were as hierarchical as the = Caduveo but=20 lacked the tribe=92s sweeping =93fanaticism=94 in rejecting the natural = world. They=20 reached differing forms of accommodation with their surroundings. The = Caduveo,=20 refusing even to procreate, didn=92t have a chance. They survive now as = sedentary=20 farmers. Such a fate of denatured inconsequence may eventually be shared = by=20 absolutist postmodernism. The Caduveo=92s ideas weren=92t useful, = perhaps. Some=20 weren=92t even true.
- 1=20
- 2
![3D"The](3D"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/ads/marketing/mm07/nyt-logo.png"){kind=logo}
![](3D"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/ads/marketing/mm08/opinion_112408.jpg=)
=20
![](3D"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/adx/images/ADS/18/74/ad.187444/needie=)
=
![](3D"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/adx/images/ADS/17/77/ad.177754/UCHC_S=)
![3D"Pastor=92s](3D"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/11/24/us/24moth_sex.jpg")
![3DDCSIMG=20](3D"http://wt.o.nytimes.com/dcsym57yw10000s1s8g0boozt_9t1x/njs.gif?dcs=)
=
![3D"E-mail](3D"http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/membercenter/icon_books.gif"){kind=icon}
![3D\"photo\"](3D\"http://graphics.nytimes.com/images/section/travel/slideshow/")
";=0A=
HTMLstr +=3D "";=0A=
HTMLstr +=3D "