Date: Sat, 07 Sep 2002 13:01:53 -0700
From: Doug Kellner <kellner-AT-ucla.edu>
Subject: Re: Theory and Practice: More Verbiage Ahead!


Thanks to Christian Fuchs for reinvigorating a dormant list with his Marcuse
Renaissance post! Two comments on the flurry of postings since:
1) Theory: In response to the Matt-Claus exchange, I think that what
distinguished Marcuse was precisely his VISION, of a better world, of
radical social transformation, combining high powered intellectual ideas
with concrete social analysis and radical politics, that actually inspired
people to think, see the world and live differently; something like this is
needed today and I'm afraid that Habermas does not provide it;
2) Practice. Critical theory needs to articulate itself with the most
advanced political movements and practice. I agree with Matt that
oppositional response to Bush's Iraq policy provides indications that people
are dissatisified, angry, and ready to move. Whatever the limitations of the
antiglobalization movement there is exhibition of a lot of energy and
struggle around the environment, peace, labor and human rights, women's
issues, and a lot of other things. The web itself is a site of a lot of
radical opposition and politics as an information and mobilization issue. As
economic conditions worsen, political repression intensifies, war and
militarism expand, people are going to come to see that their survival
depends on political action and if critical theory is to stay relevant it
must articulate with their pressing and present concerns,
cheers, dk
 Douglas Kellner
 Graduate School of Education
 Moore Hall Mailbox 951521
 UCLA
 Los Angeles, CA 90095
>
 kellner-AT-ucla.edu
 http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/kellner.html
 Fax: 310 206-6293
 Phone: 310 825-0977

----- Original Message -----
From: "Claus Hansen" <clausdh-AT-tdcspace.dk>
To: <frankfurt-school-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Saturday, September 07, 2002 6:22 AM
Subject: Re: Theory and Practice: More Verbiage Ahead!


> Dear Matt,
>
> thank you for your very inspiring post - I have some comments which I
would
> like to share with
> the rest of this list...
>
> At 13:51 07-09-02, you wrote:
>
> >I just dont think (a) there is a gap between theory and practice, and (b)
> >that it counter-productive to maintain this distinction. For a start
Ralph
> >it encourages the sort of anti-theory/anti-intellectual position you
> >polemically assert in your posts. More name dropping, but Habermas's
essay
> >on Neo-Conservative Cultural Criticism in the U.S and Germany is worth
> >reading on the type of anti-intellectual rhetoric you indulge in.
> >Basically Habermas points out that this type of anti-intellectual
rhetoric
> >has been a staple of the conservatives since the C19th.
> >
> >There are two moments of a unified praxis which perhaps for the sake of
> >categorization can be described as "theory" and "practice". I can accept
> >this distinction as a pragmatic discursive device. The problem is that
> >this distinction leads to confusion and sectionalism or divisionism a
loss
> >of solidarity - which then gets exploited by the bastards. There is the
> >practice of theory production and this happens alongside the practice of
> >social action. Moreover both types of practices are interpenetrated by
the
> >other and operate mainly in a positive feedback cycle I would suggest,
> >although I dont know how helpful the language of cybernetics is to this
> >discussion. I am happy to post a fairly extensive discussion of this
issue
> >which also challenges what Habermas called the ontological illusion of
> >pure theory, and via Wittgenstein and Sellars suggests that the social
> >knowing of mindless actionism as revolutionary practice can only be
> >mediated via a theoreticiz ed and ideologized use of language. In this
way
> >theory becomes a type of practice, and practice is only known to be such
> >via theory. I say lets leave the theory/practice distinction in Marxs
> >eleventh thesis on Feuerbach and back in the dualistic philosophical
> >politics of the C19th where it belongs.
>
> I think the main problem for me to accept this way of seeing things is
that
> is misses out on a crucial aspect of how 'theory production'
> today is done. Adorno writes in his "Introduction to Sociology" about this
> kind of gap - a gap which is one of the aspects
> of the theory/practice dichotomy mentioned above. He says that - being a
> sociologist in spe - one has to choose between wanting
> to 'make sense of the world' and 'doing socially useful labour'. In other
> words - it is not possible - in Adornos opinion to reconcile these two
> contradictory aims. The real problem about the theory production today is
> that it is TOO theoretical - most theories are not based on careful
> observation of the social world - but are 'books about books' as Manuel
> Castells puts it. The theories (Habermas is a brilliant example) are not
> second order reflections of the theories the everyday actor uses in her
> handling of her daily life - instead they are third order reflections:
> discussions of how other theoreticians have interpreted the world. On the
> other hand, the scientists who actually study the world are so narrow
> minded that they only see how our reified and ugly world looks like on the
> surface - they never penetrate beneath it to reveal the true state of
> society because they lack the conceptual tools for doing this. One of the
> things which make Marx so admirable is that he actually studied the world
> and from these observations tried to draw some consequences - both
> theoretically and practically. This practice practically doesn't exist in
> the social sciences of today - and this has the consequence of producing
> some kind of gap between theory and practice. Perhaps the only exception
is
> the late Pierre Bourdieu...
>
> Couldn't one of the problems of the left be that there are no theories you
> could be inspired by to make new visions of a better world?
> How about blaming the philosophers and sociologist who have all lacked the
> ability to use their imagination to pave the way for such visions?
Habermas
> and Giddens being prime examples of this tendency to write books about
> books - instead of studying the world they live in? Isn't their
conclusions
> about the inevitability of capitalism due to precisely this lack? Because
> they have never for instance studied the potential for resistance which
> still exist throughout the world - for instance in the anti-globalisation
> movement? In my humble opinion one has to revive the ideas of Horkheimers
> original statement on the task of an Institute of Social Research and
which
> Habermas tries to carry on. However, one would have to ask the professor
> himself (in this case Habermas) to participate in this program and study
> the world instead of only letting his research assistants do it!
>
> Being from a European country (Denmark) I cannot share your celebrations
of
> resistance against Bush's warmongering. I wonder if one could actually
> interpret it as a form of resistance? Bearing in mind the changes of
> goverments throughout Europe during the last two years it seems as if it
is
> time to a new round of neoliberalism in Europe and while the public is
> indeed critical towards the Bush-administration (and with very good
reasons
> for being so) I can't stop wondering if this is not just another sign of
us
> Europeans wanting NOT to be involved in the problems of the world and
> instead barricading ourselves her which would make Fort Europe offlimits
to
> anyone not coming from the rich parts of the world. This is anyway - how I
> see it - especially when one bears the current debate on immigrants in
mind
> - both here in Denmark and in the Netherlands and France...
>
> Claus
>
>
>
>
>