This latter idea can be made to sound unattractive by dubbing it "Nietzschean" and construing it as a form of the ruthless will to power which was incarnate in the Nazis. I should like to make it sound attractive by dubbing it 'American' and construing it as the idea common to Emerson and Whitman, the idea of a new self-creating community, united not by knowledge of the same truths but by sharing the same generous, inclusivist, democratic hopes. The idea of communal self-creation, of realizing a dream which has no justification in unconditional claims to universal validity, sounds suspicious to Habermas and Apel because they naturally associate it with Hitler. It sounds better to Americans, because they naturally associate it with Jefferson, Whitman and Dewey. The moral to be drawn, I think, is that this suggestion is neutral between Hitler and Jefferson.

The moral to be drawn, I think, is that the idea of communal self-creation—of realizing a dream which has no justification in unconditional claims to universal validity—is neutral between Hitler and Jefferson.
PasAA p.50
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Antifoundationalism