Frank Kogan

The point isn't that bullying is or is not a part of normal discourse, but that its status (is it or is it not a part of normal discourse? we've already gotten three different opinions no this thread!) as to whether or not it is within or violates the conventions is uncertain, which means that "school discourse" is neither normal nor abnormal by Rorty's definitions, which means he's got a problem with his definitions. And my underlying purpose in bringing this up in relation to The Department Of Dilettante Research is that it's a place where - for instance - someone would ask a Rorty type, it the Rorty type were to participate and try to propose such definitions, to help us formulate defintions that are more in accord with our experience and his own. In other words, the Rorty types need people like us.

(How to deal with bullies does seem to be a background concern for Rorty - as a teen he'd decided that you needed absolutes if you wanted to say that the bullies were wrong, and later he changed his mind about the need for absolutes. But his writing doesn't have much to say about how to deal with actual bullies, hands-on, as it were.)