Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 23:38:00 -0800
From: Gary <gedavis-AT-pacbell.net>
Subject: HAB: A Direction Of Inquiry


Rob writes: 

>Really gotta go [to] the topic of political economic investigations of
telecommunications and the internet. 

=======================
*That's* something I'd *love* to hear about, when you have the time. 
I've been searching for a good practical issue to suggest focusing
attention on, as a kind of test of my Habermasian sense of things
outside of his texts. I keep thinking of bioethical questions, but
haven't centered on what feels like a good, "epochal" problem. The
obvious phenomenon we share is--da, da!: The Internet. But your topic
sounds like a book (and my postings don't, of course). 

Anyway, thanks much for your time, in summarizing EMW's discussion of
early modern democratic capitalism. It makes me want to pull out
_Legitimation Crisis_ again.

The following paragraphs were written before I happened upon your
posting--as if writing into the great Silence, again....  

                                                    *  *  *

I want to finish my public trek through Habermas' "Employments" with
minimal imposition on others. One more presentation, if I may--one that
returns to the domain of  ethical meaning, this weekend, I hope. 

I'm very interested in a holism of meaning that pertains to self
understanding, relative to "Employments" (which is exemplary of his
thinking): development, educational, existential, and
clinical--differentiations that Habermas identifies in the ambiguity of
the classical notion of "ethics." Many themes from Habermas' work can be
associated with the comments on ethical meaning that Habermas offers,
aside from what I've already discussed (I do NOT want to bore you with
undue repeitition!)

I began a reading of "Employments" *because* it exhibits the broad scope
of concern with meaning that pervades Habermas' career. I felt obligated
to relativize the domain of the ethical to what he considers especially
moral, in keeping with the intention of "Employments" itself (and
Habermas' preferred emphasis on political directions of analysis), but
*my* interest is basically in the developmental / educational /
existential / clinical domain of self understanding that, Habermas would
agreee, belongs to the foundations of the "reconstructive" human
sciences (and literary sensibility, he would also agree). And, in *this*
direction, my own dispositions are decidedly philosphical, more than my
interests are practically scientific (though it was my obsession with
foundations of the social *sciences* that first brought me to Habermas
many years ago, something I welcome a chance to return to, with others
who are really trying to do good science). 

Obviously, one essay by Habermas cannot provide enough material to keep
a mind from going off in its own directions, even when (as in my case)
that direction feels much influenced by a large share of Habermas' work.
At this point, I do have my own way with things, but it's in view of a
trip *through* Habermas' work that may appear to others as a byway past
him, which it is not. I have no interest in dismissive views of his work
(aside from fascination with dismissiveness as symptomatic activity);
but I'm not a pietist, either. 

My main interest here is to see *Habermas*' work fairly worked with (not
"Gary's" thoughts, which Ken treats like fishwrap), and, since I need to
work closely with some of Habermas' texts in my own project over the
coming year, I'm trying do my best here to contribute to a genuine
engagement with Habermas' work, *especially* when I may read him
disagreeably, which is inevitable in a creative endeavor (and can be
exploited by dismissiveness, to which I will not respond). Basically, I
consider myself deeply Habermasian and feel compelled to defend him
against vapid reactionism. But I resist this, because I have better uses
for scarce time. 

In the very long run, I'm searching to understand a valid, authentic,
and creative sense of autonomy that may contribute *constructively* to
social development (especially for problem-*finding*, which is
necessary, if community is not to be driven my crisis management); and I
want to know, in the very long run, what we can do in parenting, in
teaching, in working creatively together, and in pretending to set an
example for others, that may promote valid, authentic, and creative self
understanding. I don't have a pat answer to questions, as some persons
pretend to do, and I by no means wish to be a center of attention. I'm
much more interested in what genuine students of Habermas think of his
work, no matter how "naive" one may feel venturing interpretations. It
doesn't matter!  How Habermas can be misread is an important matter. How
*I* may misread him is an important matter to me. But I do have a
compulsion to plod on in terms of Habermasian texts, and I will do so
publicly for as long as it seems generally acceptable (and what an
imaginative guy can't due with Silence). 

I won't push my own path here, inasmuch as others have good ways--and
more interesting directions--of proceeding with Habermas' work.  But, my
preference presently is to stay true to a course that heads toward the
"essence" of Habermas' work, his "quasi-transcendental" claims. The
appeal of some other path notwithstanding, I will finish the
"Employments" essay, take a trek through Habermas' sense of
dramaturgical action (as I indicated recently), and then press on
elsewhere, relative to anyone else who's genuinely interested in
Habermas' work.

For old hands, what is there to do but to take old roads again. My old
road of preference goes into Habermas' discussion of individuation
(relative to Mead), back to "moral-cognitive development" again; to the
key parts of the discourse ethic essays (in MCCA and JA), with concerns
about the foundations of formal pragmatics (in CES) not far from mind,
and then, next year some time, a *real* attempt to work through all of
BFN. Sooner or later, I have to make an extended journey into philosophy
of law. But not this year, unless someone seduces me into it. 

This is my personal agenda with Habermas because it's the loose
trajectory of contexts that corresponds to my (cough) post-Habermasian
project, that involves lots of other material I wouldn't think of
burdening the List with, but which I want to one day integrate with
Habermas' work--to amplify, deepen, complement, and correct his Moment
of work--in short, to carry forward his sense of a research program. Not
*here* altogether, you'll be glad to hear.  But I'm hoping for engaged
correspondence--each persons having *their* own Project, inevitably!--so
that we may offer each other genuine feedback on ideas (the stupider,
the better, before they get sent off to referreed crucibles!), and maybe
I can offer some comments that can be useful for your own work.  

I *wish*.  

>From one colonized lifeworld to another....

                                          Gary


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