Date: 	Wed, 22 Oct 1997 12:43:38 -0400
From: "kenneth.mackendrick" <kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: HAB: A Direction Of Inquiry


Gary,

I appreciate all of the work you are doing here.  Your posts are 
long, very long, but if one takes the time to read them I think it 
can be said your doing a great job of working through 
Habermas's text(s).

> My main interest here is to see *Habermas*' work fairly 
worked with (not "Gary's" thoughts, which Ken treats like 
fishwrap).

My fishwrapping (I don't even know what that means) was an 
attempt to shift a part of the conversation in a different 
direction.  And I did not want to attribute to your post a 
"correct" reading of Habermas.  It seems more appropriate to 
attribute the post to yourself than to an objective 3rd person.

> Basically, I consider myself deeply Habermasian and feel 
compelled to defend him against vapid reactionism.

You've mentioned 3 times now that my reading of Habermas 
is wrong - without the attempt to reconstruct my argument and 
display that you understood what I was saying.  I hope this 
isn't just a knee-jerk reaction to a dogmatic defence of a 
beloved theorist.

>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! 

Hopefully you won't treat "genuine students" with the same 
off-handed manner in which several of my posts have been 
treated.  I did my M.A. on Habermas - and my doctoral thesis 
is centered around Habermas's discourse ethics.  I don't 
consider my posts "fishwrap" nor to I consider my 
understanding of Habermas a "fast and loose misreading."

eros,
ken

ps.  Gary, correct me if i'm wrong - but your comments 
regarding my posts seem to be subtle flames.  You dress 
your comments up with polite commentary - but you really 
point your gun under the table.  If you disagree with me please 
show me the dignity and respect of telling me to fuck off to my 
face.  Don't play games and simply try to be the "good guy" 
by writing me off in with the fascade of a socially acceptable 
and politically correct way.




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