© Roger M Tagg 2012
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This book of around 200 pages offers a critical view of Habermas's ideas, particularly in relation to current social and political concerns. It pre-dates the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) of 2008 to the time of writing. Some of the author's comments seem justified in the light of what has happened, but others seem to derive more from conviction that from any rational forecasting. Habermas's theories have had a wide readership among students and researchers in the social sciences. I would say that to be well read about modern society, they are definitely something one should have considered - and, if necessary - rejected!.
| Chapter | Page | Highlight |
|---|---|---|
| Preface | xi | "For all of its bravado, contemporary capitalism is at an impasse." ... "The traditional socialist remedies for this impasse are also suspect." Hence the current 'welfare state compromise'. |
| xii | Habermas (H) "has insisted that his social theory is a continuation of Marxian theory in contemporary circumstances" and regards the welfare state compromise as "necessary but disempowering". | |
| H has called his magnum opus 'The Theory of Communicative Action', "hopelessly abstract" and "a monster". | ||
| xiii | H "is the premier representative of the second generation of critical theorists known as the Frankfurt School". That school, "stimulated by the work of Max Weber", included Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse, and "focused attention on the dangerous predominance of 'instrumental reason' in contemporary society". | |
| xiv | According to H, "modern understanding is based on acknowledging different dimensions of rationality or 'voices of reason' that are specific to natural science, morals and subjective expression, and that are irreducible to one another" [RT: my italics]. | |
| State-managed capitalism has forced social life to be dominated by only instrumental reason. | ||
| xv | H importantly distinguishes between society conceived as a 'lifeworld' and society conceived as a 'system'. | |
| 1 - Weber | 1 | Weber: "Modern society is characterized by the dominance of rational action". |
| and Modernity | 1-2 | This is based on "systematic thought using precise concepts, analysis of means for their effectiveness in obtaining a goal; methodical action; and rejection of traditional belief in favour of independent reasoning about a situation". |
| 2 | This spilt over into the political sphere, e.g. a "constitutional state, rigorous articulation of legal concepts, and the dominant role of 'officials'"; and into culture, economic activity and 'society' generally. | |
| 4 | "There is hardly a more powerful and universal human desire than to try to make sense of the world." | |
| 5 | It's the desire for a consistent story that "pushes religious belief in the direction of rationalization". | |
| 'Theodicy', in addressing the problem of evil, has to explain the (apparent) "inequality of rewards and punishment". | ||
| 7 | Modernity within religion seems to involve aiming to act as a 'tool' of the divine, as opposed to a 'vessel'; this encouraged practical, engaged good living - and hence capitalism - rather than ascetic withdrawal. | |
| 9 | Calvinists thought it better to "push aside all doubts" as to whether one was 'chosen' or not, "since lack of confidence is the result of insufficient faith, hence of imperfect grace". | |
| "Success in one's occupation was taken to be a sign of 'election'."(as in the sense of being 'chosen', as above). | ||
| 10 | This was the end of 'enchantment', or 'magical forces'. The world becomes knowable, calculable, "robbed of gods". | |
| 11 | "This leads to a utilitarian attitude toward economic affairs." | |
| 13 | But, "an economic order that is free to follow its own internal dynamic negates the idea of a social order governed by brotherliness". | |
| 14 | "... Individuals acting properly act in an 'impersonal' manner, 'without hate and therefore without love'." | |
| 16 | "... Rationalized social practices ... have provoked the establishment of other life orders organized around alternative values, especially art and eroticism ... as 'compensations for the routines of everyday life'. People seek a kind of inner-worldly salvation that does not require religious inspiration." | |
| 17 | Goethe referred to "Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart". | |
| 18 | Since values in these different life orders are 'incommensurable', "an individual must simply choose on the basis of whatever 'ultimate ends' she or he finds meaningful". So Weber is a bit of an existentialist. | |
| 19 | Weber talked about an 'iron cage', which Habermas interprets "as a loss of freedom due to the emergence of narrowly rational organizational frameworks such as the capitalist economy and bureaucracies" - which are ever expanding. | |
| 2 - Weber and | 22 | Marx viewed production as created by society as a whole, but the exchange of commodities upsets this. Lukacs viewed this as a process of 'reification' (i.e. regarding everything as 'things') creeping into social life. |
| Western Marxism | 25 | H: "Critical Theory was initially developed in Horkheimer's circle, to think through political disappointments at the absence of revolution (as forecast by Marx) in the West; also the development of Stalinism in Soviet Russia and the (then) victory of Fascism in Germany". |
| 27 | The individual "no longer has room to evade the system". Horkheimer (Hork) and Adorno wrote: "Through the countless agencies of mass production and its culture, the conventionalized modes of behaviour are impressed on the individual as the only natural, responsible and rational ones. He defines himself only as a thing, a static element, a success or failure". | |
| 28-9 | This brings the danger of relativism [RT: how?] and resentment, denial of values, and nihilism. | |
| 30 | Hork and Adorno proposed 'mimesis' - empathy with each other - as a possible way forward. Habermas didn't go for it. | |
| Hork & Adorno "profoundly doubted that socialism still promised a different civilization. Like capitalism, its project too is forged as the domination of nature". | ||
| 31 | Marcuse: "The so-called consumer economy and the politics of corporate capital have created a second nature of man which ties him libidinally and aggressively to the commodity form"; i.e., it has re-oriented man's basic desires. | |
| 32 | This is like "... a consumer consuming himself in buying and selling". Marcuse favoured a re-orientation from this to aesthetic concerns and 'play'. | |
| 33 | Marcuse: "The traditional working class is too enthralled by existing needs and their satisfaction". [RT: probably, most of us are.] | |
| 34 | Marcuse: We need "a new science and technology that is not subverted by commodity production and the unrestrained domination of the natural world". [RT: haven't we got that now with Environmental Science?] | |
| H: State intervention upsets the "central assumptions of classical Marxism". | ||
| 35 | Also, "class conflict has become 'latent'". Instead (of the traditional class divisions), we have a class of the 'excluded', who are 'marginalized'. | |
| Also, military interests have replace economic ones in some parts of the world. | ||
| 36 | There's a danger of a 'motivation crisis' - should we be driven by "virtues and sacrifices" or by "the dictates of professional careers, the ethics of status competition and ... 'possessive individuals'?". | |
| 37 | As with postmodernist thinkers, Hork and Adorno's criticisms "lead to a dead end because their critique of reason deprives them of the basis for any reasoned critical theory". | |
| H: "... The distinction between validity and power, what is true or right instead of what merely prevails, is crucial to 'any theoretical approach". | ||
| 38 | H proposed three types of rationality, 'instrumental reason' being just one. He also distinguished 'lifeworld' and 'system' views of society (see later). | |
| 3 - Ration -ality and | 41 | Modern culture fragments into different value spheres. This confuses people, so we get things like religious fundamentalism and postmodernism. But it's also an opportunity to see things more clearly. |
| Communi- | 42 | The problem comes with selective rationality, i.e. an imbalance of the different spheres. |
| cative | "Mere success of an action is not sufficient to establish rationality. | |
| Action | 43 | Actions are rational if they are oriented to goals, which in turn reflect one's values. |
| 44 | Judging someone's rationality, according to H, lies "in the plausibility of the reasons that can be marshalled for the claim that the world is such...". It is criticizability that makes learning possible [RT: shades of Popper?]. So rationality is 'intersubjective'; we need critics. | |
| "Through reasoned discussion we are actually 'assuring' each other that we belong to a common world." | ||
| 46 | "Expressions of desire or need" can similarly be judged in discussion, by comparison to other people in similar situations [RT: shades of Kant's categorical imperative?]. | |
| We can apply this thinking to each of the three 'worlds', 'facts', 'social' and 'subjective'. In the first, it's truth and accuracy [RT: and repeatability?]. In the second, it's 'normatively right'. In the third, it's sincerity of expression. The latter two are 'analogous' to truth, but don't apply to 'things' objectively. This is "universal pragmatics" [RT: like the 'triple bottom line']. | ||
| 48 | This is all 'decentering', compared with traditional mythology or religion that claimed a single dimension. "This decentering is furthered by the emergence of 'expert cultures'. | |
| 49 | Because language always mediates all contact with what 'exists', H says that his 3 worlds are "inner-worldly functions of language", and that there is a fourth function of language, a "world-disclosing" one, which is where some languages limit us. | |
| 50 | An interpretation of the world cannot be "inoculated against criticism". It's better to have a "capacity to reflect". | |
| Charles Taylor: "Technological superiority is not everything, but it is something". | ||
| 51 | "Modern cultural differentiation ... alters the kinds of reason that are now acceptable". | |
| 52 | H's 'communicative action' is through 'consent' rather than 'influence' (such as "threats of force, money, playing on emotional attachments, manipulative rhetoric and the like" [RT and bullshit generally]). | |
| One can distinguish "saying something" (illocutionary in Austin's terminology) from "trying to get something to occur by saying something" (perlocutionary). | ||
| 53 | "Only a mutual orientation to validity claims can make agreements binding on participants in future coordinated action." | |
| 54 | But, "interests must always enter any communication". | |
| 56 | There has to be some 'projection' about whether the validity will be true in the future; e.g. is it 'for ever' or 'until better knowledge or understanding comes along'. | |
| 4 - Society as Lifeworld and System | 61 | "Society must be conceived as both a meaningful whole (from the standpoint of the participants) and as a self-maintaining system constituted of subsystems fulfilling various functions (an observer perspective). 'Lifeworld' is the first of these. |
| 62 | Lifeworld is a 'phenomenology' of the world. "...The astonishing lifeworld fact of social integration without violence" means that we don't always have to 'bargain' with each other. | |
| 63 | H's 'counterfactual' - the presumption of sincere and fair participation [RT: and competence?] may be false. | |
| 64 | "... Understanding emerges through linguistic practice ..." | |
| 65 | "... There is no prior consciousness to wield language as a tool for reaching understanding. Our language, however frail, is all there is." | |
| The lifeworld is the 'we'; "the individual's identity is constituted by seeing oneself through the eyes of another". [RT: not so pukka existentialist!] | ||
| "Society is not an aggregation of individuals, but fundamentally a network of communicative actions ..." | ||
| 66 | "... If existing 'interpretive schemes' are incapable of comprehending new situations by meaningfully connecting them with the existing cultural situation, loss of meaning occurs." | |
| 66-7 | In such cases, the resources of 'meaning', 'social solidarity' and 'ego strength' (this latter being 'of individuals') may all become scarce. | |
| 67 | Rationalization disempowers tradition as a means of stabilizing the lifeworld; so do "pluralities of cultures and religions". So does "social differentiation of roles, occupations and interests". [RT: Well, we are truly stuck with all of these.] | |
| 68 | With this in mind, we have to "criticize received wisdom ... (and take) responsibility for life choices, reconciling conflicting demands of diverse social roles, and forging a life history that makes sense". | |
| "Traditional ways of raising youth" are out; "professionalization means an increase in the level of 'reflection'" needed. | ||
| In the social and moral sphere, democracy becomes an important element. | ||
| 69 | 'Customary practices' may still take place 'behind the backs' of society's members. | |
| "'Ascribed' consensus is replaced by 'achieved' consensus." | ||
| 70 | "... The lifeworld is a 'conservative counterweight' to the possibility of disagreement that always accompanies communicative action." | |
| Attempts to restore "metaphysical or religious unity of world views" (maybe by force) "will ultimately fail" - they would just "create a nation of hypocrites". | ||
| 71 | In 'society as a system' individuals are freed, in some fields, to operate in ways "not 'steered' by traditional consensus or reasoned argument". This lowers the burden on communicative action (in the lifeworld), which would otherwise come under too much pressure in the modern world. | |
| 72 | H considers 3 main 'subsystems' - the economic, the public administrative and the lifeworld (itself, as a subsystem). | |
| 73 | One can try to comprehend society "from either a participant's perspective or an observer's perspective, but either (on its own) would soon be inadequate". | |
| 74 | "... The capitalist economy can only function ... as a series of exchanges of commodities" by making a 'real abstraction' about the value of labour, so that there is a basis for rational exchange. | |
| 75 | Economy and public administration are 'media-steered', the media being 'money' and 'power' respectively. | |
| 77 | In public administration it's mainly power, but 'organizational performance' is measurable through taxes (input), political decisions (social programs) and 'mass loyalty' (output - i.e. support for the government, national or local. | |
| There is a 'real abstraction' here too - of individuals into 'clients of a welfare system'. | ||
| 78 | Can order evolve autonomously in a social system, as in 'Complexity Theory'? And can people understand the feedback mechanisms? Many of these aren't visible in the lifeworld. | |
| 79 | "Welfare policies 'dam up' conflict based on social class" - but there will still be conflicts. | |
| 5 - Social Conflict and | 81-83 | 'Juridification' is encroachment of the "money-bureaucratic" subsystems on the lifeworld, e.g. when money and power outflank reasoned agreement on what is good. |
| Progressive Politics | 83 | "Welfare state compensations result in 'paternalism', 'custodial supervision' and 'civil privatism' ... citizens are transferred into consumers and clients of social programs - and it erodes charity and community spirit." |
| 85 | Conflict breaks out not in the "classic loci of conflicts predicted by traditional socialists (but) along the seams between system and lifeworld". | |
| 86 | The result is "unsettling of collective identity (culture), alienation (person) and especially the danger of 'anomie' (society)". | |
| 87 | "The welfare state undermines the sense of 'we' ... but ... the retreat of the welfare state also weakens social solidarity." | |
| 89-92 | Habermas's answer is bottom-up law. | |
| 92 | The 1960s revolts were 'anti-state', yet socialist politics tended to expand it (the state and its power). | |
| 93 | "... Traditional socialism means simply replacing the medium of money with another, the medium of power." | |
| Revolution "is no longer an option ... the possibility of total collapse and consequent new barbarisms is simply too great". | ||
| 94 | Instead, we have to "restrain the actions of subsystems". | |
| 94-98 | H's idea is to have a 'public sphere' or 'social space' - a sort of parallel but bottom-up community of thinkers. Such groups would have 'influence' but not power. | |
| 98 | The public - not socialist intellectuals - should determine the future. | |
| 6 - Contested Terrain: | 100 | "Many social theorists, associated with the perspective of postmodernism, are deeply suspicious of the very idea of consensus." Lyotard is highlighted as an example. He claimed that consensus "must engage in a war on the different" and "Linguistic practices are therefore an arena of contest". |
| Language, Art and | 102 | Lyotard's view is rather like some trends in modern art [RT: i.e. it's no good unless it's new, different]. Consensus becomes authoritarian [RT: surely only if it's regarded as unalterable?]. |
| Gender | 103 | But, Sitton says, "Implicit in the very pursuit of Lyotard's argument ... is the unspoken 'Don't you agree?' ". |
| Habermas was probably a bit thin on the role of language in his earlier writings. | ||
| 105 | In his 'aesthetic-expressive' domain of rationality, H's theory has a problem by conflating these two terms. The first is about evaluation, the second is just expression. | |
| Art and music are both 'non-linguistic' [RT: I'd say there was just a different sort of 'non-text' language], whereas discussion about them (i.e. evaluation) is linguistic. | ||
| "There is a huge gulf between the art world and everyday aesthetic intuitions." | ||
| 106 | David Ingram argues that evaluation will always remain non-universal. [RT: one could say the same about consensus in general, but it's more obvious in aesthetics.] | |
| H suggests we can judge art on criteria of 'unity' and 'authenticity' [RT: surely not just on those?]; and that art "suspends our usual orientations" and creates "a decentered, unbound subjectivity that alters our sensibility" [RT: maybe only temporarily, until we get back to the grindstone or rat race]. | ||
| 107 | What about "the subjective expression of needs and desires"? [RT: can one package it with the aesthetic?] | |
| The 3 value spheres still "communicate with each other", which avoids "the blind purities of, respectively, 'objectivism', 'moralism' and 'aestheticism'. [RT: Kirkegaard wrote about the 'aesthete'.] | ||
| "The aesthetic has a kind of double position", i.e. 1) as a value sphere; and 2) "with a global effect on the perspectives of the whole, akin to the world-disclosive function of language". | ||
| 108 | H: "Everyday life ... is a more promising medium for regaining the lost unity of reason than are today's expert cultures or yesteryear's classical philosophy of reason". | |
| 109 | Feminist critics say H largely misses gender issues. | |
| 110 | Child-rearing "carries with it attachments that cannot be set aside". There is an "ethic of care" [RT: and some manage to overdo it]. | |
| 111 | There's a suspicion that H favours rather too much 'detachment' from "desire, affectivity and the body". | |
| 112 | But Sitton says that H's focus on reason is not "monological authoritarianism" but intersubjective "giving reasons". | |
| 113 | Some say H devalues "the playful, dramatic, metaphorical, emotional etc". [RT: but mightn't we have to tone these down when faced with a crisis?] | |
| 114 | Gender differences can arise from different balances between 'home' and 'work'. | |
| 115 | Women have become the greater proportion of welfare 'clients'. | |
| 117 | Welfare replaces "private patriarchy" by "public patriarchy". | |
| 119 | H: "In processes of enlightenment, there can only be participants". No-one has "a monopoly on definition". | |
| 7 - The Limit -ations of | 121 | Sitton (S) talks about H's "unrealistic conception of an autonomous economic sphere" and "a much too chaste project of progressive political action". [RT: matters of opinion, surely?] |
| Habermas's | 122 | S maintains that "a sharp separation of system and lifeworld processes cannot be sustained in regard to the capitalist economy". |
| Social and Political | 122-3 | Subsystems themselves aren't institutions but processes, which do however need institutions and organizations to anchor their media (e.g. money and power), usually via laws. |
| Argument | 125 | S thinks "the economy is rooted more deeply in life-world forms than Habermas allows", and hence "there are more potential channels for social conflict than H suggests". |
| 126 | Hereabouts there is a rather woolly argument about "organizational performance" and "members' orientations" [RT: but clearly the first is affected by the second]. | |
| 127 | Do "organizations gain autonomy from lifeworld restrictions"? [RT: They may try, but probably never totally successfully.] | |
| 128 | "Unlike with other commodities, when labour power is sold, the buyer and seller cannot go their separate ways. ... How much work will actually be performed in the time period" depends on working conditions and attitudes [RT: but also on how 'tractable' the physical world being worked upon turns out to be]. | |
| "Much of modern bureaucracy thus verges on the 'collegial' pattern." [RT: this probably only applies in more advanced countries and industries, and even then, some organizations or their managers still fight against this.] | ||
| "... Actor orientations cannot be excluded from organizations operating in system domains." | ||
| 129 | H sees conflicts as between the 4 roles of employee, consumer, client (e.g. welfare) and citizen. His 'public sphere' (i.e. citizen) is currently weak, and employees, although alienated, are 'normalized'. So he concludes that it's between consumer and client. [RT: I suppose this makes sense if 'consumer' includes the ordinary householder and taxpayer, who may resent massive spending on welfare.] | |
| 130 | Both 'consumer' and 'client' are oriented to 'use-values' [RT: i.e., what's the benefit to them personally?]. Sitton thinks all get 'commoditized'. | |
| 131 | "H's dualistic social theory results in a re-thinking of socialist politics as a form of 'deliberative democracy'. | |
| 132 | The relative strength of the 'influence' of the "public sphere's" councils on the one hand, and the power of existing authorities on the other, is unclear in H's political proposals. | |
| 134 | If 'public sphere' activity is too 'local', "the deterioration of politics into mere 'interest group activity' is likely". | |
| 135 | H's approach involves "protecting subsystem processes from overweening lifeworld impulses". [RT: As one might find if one relied on frequent opinion polls - or referenda.] | |
| H: "Any democratization of the administration must be sensitive to (the possibility of) eroding administrative 'efficiency'". [RT: And raising admin costs!] | ||
| 136 | H doesn't like "value jurisprudence", i.e. judges weighing some values against others. He prefers separating universal, consistent, morally obligatory 'norms' from teleological 'values'. | |
| 138 | "In capitalist countries, those who control investment funds exercise tremendous veto power over public policy." However, "investors cannot for long simply refuse to invest. They must eventually invest somewhere". [RT: maybe cash under the mattress? That might have been better during the GFC!] | |
| There's certainly a class issue here [RT: maybe the rest of us versus the bankers and investment gurus who can operate a 'capital strike'?] | ||
| 139 | "Effective resistance to marginalization" has to mean a sort of 'veto' to 'stop the machine', via "demonstrations, strikes, work to rule, even sabotage and threats of violence". Compared with this, H's 'deliberative democracy' is more like "the perfect graduate student seminar". | |
| 140 | Sitton thinks that Habermas hasn't appreciated this issue. | |
| Recently, S says, "the moral universalism that maintains social solidarity has been seriously wounded" - and marginalization has spread. | ||
| 8 - Habermas | 141 | With the collapse of communist regimes in Europe, and the advance of neo-liberalism, H switched to a more international vision. |
| and the Politics of the 21st | Sitton asks "Is it still reasonable to theoretically exclude the classical socialist topics of property, exploitation and social class?" [RT: but what about attempts to encourage a 'property-owning democracy', e.g. sale of UK council houses to occupants? And in Australia, there isn't so much class difference except at the extremes of 'super-rich' and marginalized 'battlers' - but there are still 'ratbags' - pronounced 'repbairgs'.] | |
| Century | 142 | "Since individual nations get their tax revenues from economic activity, they must tack with the winds of international competition." |
| 143 | "Transnational corporations and banks have 'undermined' the capacity of states to control their own economies to the extent that, combined with global communication networks, the nation-state is actually becoming an anachronism. This is true of all states, not just developing countries." | |
| Hence the appearance of an 'underclass' for which "the most the excluded can do is engage in "self-destructive revolts" or "violence against immigrants". | ||
| We also see "separatist movements in more affluent regions". | ||
| 144 | And "... general demonization of intellectuals and the reassertion of 'traditional values' to "compensate the private lifeworld for personal burdens". Clinton talked about "the politics of meaning". | |
| "Neo-conservatives hope to encourage 'a process of re-enchantment, by narrative without argument, inspirational literature, the creation of meaning, and empathic historicism'." | ||
| But, says Sitton, "Traditionalism ... apes a substance that has already disintegrated". | ||
| 144-5 | "'Religious socialization' such as that of Islamic fundamentalism can create 'deeper fractures than (can) differences in modes of production or class distinctions' ". | |
| 145 | "The masses from the impoverished regions of the world lack effective sanctions against the North; ... at most, they can 'threaten' with waves of immigration." But what about September 11th? | |
| 146 | Ultimately, such things threaten democracy. And what about national cohesion in the face of 'multiculturalism'? | |
| 147 | H says we need re-invigorated democracies based on acceptance of the basic laws and "reciprocal recognition of other subcultures"; but this shouldn't allow "fundamentalist immigrant subcultures (to) deny the right of alternative identities to exist". | |
| 148 | H favours regional organizations like the European Union for reducing pressures on welfare policies, for "escaping the zero-sum game of 'locational competition' ". | |
| 149 | "The rise of the politics of human rights further shows that the claim of 'non-intervention', in the name of self-determination of nations, is rapidly losing credence." [RT: in some places, but not everywhere.] | |
| "The primary source of continual growth of normative regulation in world politics will not be 'mass action' whose day has passed, but the emergence of a global public sphere." [RT: could the web help in this?] Can there ever be "cosmopolitan solidarity"? | ||
| 150 | And can there ever be 'cosmopolitan law? Or an international criminal court? And what about world citizenship (not excluding citizenship of nation states, and not implying world government)? | |
| 152 | "Capitalism is only actualized [RT: or does he mean 'kept going'?] through law and policy." | |
| 152-3 | "Decision makers in the U.S. are committed to a much more rapacious capitalism than other capitalist nations might be." (John Gray) | |
| 154 | "'Property right' is actually a bundle of rights" (Hayek). "Conflict over what is included or excluded from this bundle - and the consequences for the distribution of goods, services and life choices - is inescapable." | |
| Sitton brings us back to 'latent classes'; H, he says, tries to downplay class. [RT: but things didn't work out regarding class as Marx predicted.] | ||
| 155 | H "denies that the growing inequality between North and South is a consequence of 'exploitation' ". But one can still have exploitation in mutually advantageous relationships [RT: but this is often due to one side's ignorance of technology, economics, or use-value.] | |
| 156 | Capitalism is a 'historic system' which "continues to promote specific class structures and political institutions in various countries". [RT: sounds like nostalgia for neat distinctions as in Marx. But I'd say such class structures and institutions are much more fluid than Sitton wants to admit.] | |
| There's also a conflict between workers in developed countries (wanting to keep their jobs but to keep commodity prices down) and those in developing countries (wanting to grab those jobs and catch up in their standard of living). | ||
| 157 | H admits that some regard his 'public sphere' as having "the ring of an empty formula" [RT: it seems a bit that way to me.] Participants in such a 'sphere' will probably be limited to "those who 'count' " - writing off, so Sitton says, the whole of Africa and the marginalized anywhere. | |
| S says that "a social and political theory that speaks to the contemporary world must reveal possibilities for resistance that will improve the chances that everyone (RT's italics) will count". | ||
| S also thinks that "the authenticity and effectiveness of the public sphere requires that we recognize that reason without revolution is not possible". [RT: but he hasn't said what sort of revolution? Not English August-2011-style riots surely? Maybe Leipzig-1989-style million person marches? Suicide bombers? Or maybe he yearns for Paris in 1968? Or just the election of far-left governments?] | ||
| 157-8 | "Many progressives shrink from the socialist heritage, fearing disaster. But existing practices are already a disaster in larger parts of the world." [RT: but there's a difference of scale of disaster between the GFC and a credit crunch on one hand and riots in Syria or the Taliban in Afghanistan on the other.] | |
| 158 | S asks "in what direction we should act?" - but all he can then say is that Habermas's theory constrains our ability to think through an answer. |
Early on in the book, I found I got a reasonably clear idea of what Habermas's basic theory says. However I think both Weber and Habermas - and Marx as well - overemphasize the particular situations pertaining to their time in history. Probably, the trends in society that Habermas and others address have been happening since the arrival of Neolithic farmers, and new challenges will keep on appearing.
I liken capitalism (and all our 'subsystems' for that matter) as a sort of vehicle that we continually develop, but over which we don't always have enough control. It's a 'runaway train' - or a 'juggernaut' (in the sense of a Hindu processional mega-vehicle that often tramples devotees under its wheels).
When Europe was in the hands of the mediaeval church, maybe we had settled social cohesion, but it was often maintained by force. Then various people uncovered both new and forgotten knowledge, and the power of religion became fragmented into both sects and independent nations. Some philosophers thought that 'pure reason' could take over and form a replacement 'public sphere', but that didn't happen. Nowadays, with immigration, multiculturalism and pluralism of religion there doesn't seem much likelihood that a 'public sphere' could get enough agreement to 'influence' any of local government, national government or multinational organizations' policies. The group that seems to come nearest to Habermas's ideas must surely be that of the Green Parties - but they are often still regarded as 'fringe' and don't appear to have much idea of how to transition existing practices to better ones without risking fairly big disasters for most of the population. Another such candidate, with apparently some effect on national governments, might be Amnesty International.
A more recently possible mechanism for the 'public sphere' might be the Internet. Possible internet superstructures that might support Habermas's ideas could include social networking (I'm thinking Facebook rather than the 'instant' and 'off the cuff' Twitter), Wikipedia, Picasa, YouTube and many other publicly accessible websites devoted to 'no-axe-to-grind' presentation of interpretations and opinions. True, there is a risk that 'single issue' sites may outweigh general ones. But maybe someone could start a 'consult the people' site where a range of opinions on a wide set of topics of general interest could be aired and analyzed. After all, this is bread and butter for market research companies. However there is always a risk that public opinion may be too easily swayed (and too often reversed) by emotional appeals arising from isolated incidents and problems - not to mention a fair level of public ignorance or misinformation on many subjects.
Anyhow, I suspect that G8, the EU and other Western interests will do their damnedest to ensure that we avoid really bad worldwide disasters, even if this means easing back on the throttle of the runaway vehicle of capitalism. After all, most European governments, even after a swing to the right, have not totally dismembered their welfare states. However it's possible that some trimming of them will be necessary, maybe even beneficial. Some US Republicans still fight any further encroachment of welfare systems.
I was disappointed with the end of the book, where Sitton talks about "reason without revolution" not being possible, and suggesting that only a return to "socialist heritage" can save us from disaster. He doesn't offer any practical programme of his own. Maybe he is a 'heart' rather than a 'head' socialist, following on from some earlier inspirations and commitments.
Index to more highlights of interesting books
Some of these links may be under construction – or re-construction.
This version updated on 15th January 2012
If you have constructive suggestions or comments, please contact the author rogertag@tpg.com.au .