Date: 	Mon, 24 Mar 1997 11:47:27 -0500
From: "kenneth.mackendrick" <kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: HAB: Habermas and Social Action


 Pomos are philosophical radicals and practical conservatives.
> 
I think this is a fairly unhelpful thing to say.  It is simply a slap in the face - mud 
slinging.  Chomsky was right about this - there is no adequate response.  What can 
you say to this?  No I'm not?  The terms radicals, reformers, liberals, ironists, and 
conservatives marks out moments of identity thinking which steamrole over 
individuals.  Simply because a philosopher has not spelled out a blueprint is no 
reason to peg them as a conservative (this is a standard charge against the 
Frankfurt School in general).  And simply because postmodernism presents one 
criitque of metaphysics it does not constitute radicality.  Karl Kraus noted that 
"origin is the goal."  By definition - the term radical applies here.  Has 
postmodernism really cut to the chase - and hit the origin?  And is Derrida really a 
conservative because his notion of justice is understood as something that is yet 
to be?  These divisions also form a hierarchy of political theory - with radical = 
good and conservative = bad - and it does not do justice to the actual contents of 
the concepts being used and their inherent dialectical tendency (identity, 
nonidentity or facticity, norm etc).

ken




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