Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 19:27:42 +1000
From: rws-AT-comserver.canberra.edu.au (Rob Schaap)
Subject: Re: HAB: Re: Habermas and Social Action


G'day Norma,

[I don't know how I'm going to answer this (defensively, perhaps?).  You
ask if I think]

'that procedures for argumentation can still be sufficiently fluid
>that the discoursers can work these out as they go along.  Maybe even - as
>some postmodernists suggest the very idea of argumentation has to be
>revisited - so that we  can think up different ways of engaging in
>conversation.' 

[I agree with Habermas that communication socialises individuals whilst,
concomitantly, integrating them via the inevitable reproduction and
transformation of norms, and, ultimately 'making' a culture.

A chatlist has its boundaries and peculiarities.  Appeals to reason on a
list like this have to be quite explicit and elaborate - no-one told us
that, but we clearly all know.  Nevertheless, 'tis the nature of
communication that we are developing a specific culture here.  

Anyway, it occurs to me that one who makes a proposition, must, per force,
make it in a certain way.  That person seems to me to be opening up room
for two argumentative responses (in the Habermasian sense of 'argument' -
and of course responses needn't be argumentative).  Both substance and
style may come into fair question.  

I can't remember if it was Nancy Fraser or Lisa McCulloch - but I'm sure at
least one of them implied/said that there is such a thing as a 'bloke's'
way of arguing - or even that the notion of argument itself is a 'blokey'
construct - a serious critique of Habermas all by itself, perhaps.

If this is the sensibility that prompts you to put the question, then
perhaps we should consciously negotiate a 'new situation definition'.

Simone Chambers has this to say concerning H. and communication as
democratic practice:

'The task of a theory of discursive legitimacy is to formalise, clarify,
and universalise the unavoidable presupposition that behind every
legitimate norm stands a good reason, and in doing so to rationalise the
"diffused, fragile, continually revised, only momentarily successful
communication" by which we unreflectively renew social norms.  In this way
we arrive at a fair, rational, and impartial method to reflectively test
the legitimacy of a norm.'

This is, to my mind, critical theory defined.  Critical theory, as defined
by Horkheimer (who I believe coined the term), must always be linked to
practice.  I guess I am preaching Habermas as I understand him - meaning I
must practise what I preach.  If the norms implicit in my argumentative
style (honed in the company of mostly male lefties, I must admit) - or the
norm of argument itself - need negotiation, well, that negotiation can not
help but be enlightening.]

>The conversation can be less argumentative and simply aimed
>at allowing people to develop fresh insights. In such a process (of
>developing insight), it does not really help to call other people names,
>unless the name calling is an invitation for the people involved to cast
>fresh light on the meaning of the name(s) being invoked. Then this allows
>people to move beyond the stereotypes.

[While I admit to the prejudice in question, I agree my 'name-calling' can
be (generously) read as one or more implicit propositions, ie. useful
points of departure.].  

>Can you not be a humanist without being a universalist? Here again, the
>meaning of the terms can be regarded as symbols that invite further
>discussion.

[A humanist is, to my mind, a universalist.  I'd have thought that what one
posits as 'human' constitutes a universalising claim. Importantly, Habermas
does not put universalism and transcendentalism in the same class - here I
agree with Rorty, a self-confessed pomo, no less!]

>I think perhaps it is too stereotypical to say that postmodernists are
>oriented (only) to the will to power. I think many of them recognise that
>communication can be threatened by power play  and that it would be better
>to set up different kinds of communication (that are less prone to exclude
>the styles of certain players). Their view of communication as conversation
>might differ from Habermas's view. I think it does no harm to try and
>engage seriously with their alternative view of "communication".

[Okay.  We modernists feel rather defensive these days.  I'm cross and
maybe I sounded it.  Cross about *what seems to me* the self-destruction of
the left, its critical platforms, its critical tools, and its sense of
purpose.  I'm cross because suddenly so many in the academy have embraced a
way of thinking *that seems to me* defeatist collaboration in its practical
application.  I may be wrong.  I've certainly not read a lot of pomo
literature - and Ken already has me thinking.  I'm not inclined to think
well of unvalidated appeals to an effectively totalising relativism, a
preoccupation with consumption/surface phenomena, empirically injudicious
claims that no 'preferred meaning' can be gleaned from texts, and the 'will
to power' thesis.  I don't think my 'name calling' was a power play.  I see
Habermas as an unjustifiably lonely figure just now.  

Anyway, I didn't mean to exclude, and if I'm doing this perhaps I do need
putting right.]


Cheers,
Rob.




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