Date: Mon, 15 May 1995 21:46:33 -0400
From: Brad4d6-AT-aol.com
Subject: Re: HAB: norms


Philip Goldstein writes:

>...the norms 
>which Habermas attributes to discourse are not necessarily features of 
>discourse but stem, I believe, from Kantian theory. That's why I claimed 
>that these norms are absolute. Do I go too far?

It seems to me that it would be more in keeping with Habermas's ideas (as I
understand them at this point) to say that the norms... stem not from Kantian
theory but from the (or at least a certain) *spirit* of Kantian theory, i.e.,
orientation toward searching for the implicit conditions of possibility for
what manifestly goes on in human existence (in simple terms, although the
subject is not simple: recognizing what we're doing).  E.g., one cannot be
engaging in a conversation unless each participant allows the other
participants "space" to assess what each says and to freely respond.  This
does not imply that conversation has to exist, only that, if conversation
exists, i.e., if persons choose to bring it into / sustain it in existence in
whatever situation, it has this structure, which is not vitiated by being
thematized within the conversation....

Where these norms are not instantiated, we have something else (e.g.,
strategic communication).  Where do these norms come from?  While I am
sympathetic to the notion that strategic communication is *dependent* on
prior dialogical communication, I have not seen an argument which convinces
me (the psychoanalytic literature has lots of case material concerning
children whose symbolic development shows little in the way of Habermasean
normative communication).  And, in any case, any such argument would be
"metaphysical", positing certain attributes of "reality" beyond the claims
that can be redeemed from the resources intrinsic to the discourse itself.

I would propose that the way in which these norms are absolute may be
emergent (and, alas, transient), insofar as persons who *are* engaged in
dialogical communication recognize that they are engaged in such conversation
as part of their interaction, and feed that recognition back into the dialog
as a pervasive part of the conversation.  It is a contingent absolute (the
dialog can degrade / end / ... at any time), but it does seem to me (based on
reflection upon my experience of communicative interactions) "compelling",
i.e., able to withstand critique (which latter becomes more evidence for it).
 This seems to me to work primarily at the level of direct reflection upon
ongoing social experience ("when two or three are gathered together..."), and
not in terms of third-person discourse (the present discourse included),
which functions like a guide book but should not be mistaken for the journey.

>"Habermas seeks to draw upon the norms which
>are implicit in discourse itself.  That doesn't place any contraints upon
>the substantive content of discourse so long as it remains 
>discourse."

Conservative elements seem to me often to have a better understanding of (or
at least a more acute visceral reaction to) the nature of normative
conversation than liberals.  They know that unthematized censorship is the
only way to preserve their linguistically but not dialogically transmitted
forms of life.  The Habermasean norms of discourse, while they don't put any
constraints on the substantive content of discourse, reframe *every* content
of discourse as an object of universal critique, and that destroys the
rhetorical power of most of the discourse which has ever existed.
 Furthermore, it reorients social existence from primacy of accomplishing
<whatever> objective goals, to sustaining the conversational space itself.
 (At present, we seem to have a mockery of this, where increasing efforts are
being made to orient society toward sustaining telecommunication links,
without regard for the normative -- in Habermas's sense -- quality of the
message traffic on that "net" -- the image of the vascularization of cancer
tumors came to my mind as I wrote this...)

Brad McCormick