From: James Chriss <ChrissJ-AT-ksnewman.edu>
Subject: RE: HAB: Being exemplary in the neighborhood.II
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 12:25:21 -0500


On Habermas and Durkheim, consider the following.  Habermas (1984)
accuses Erving Goffman's dramaturgical theory of action of being
one-sided in its emphasis on the strategic and goal-oriented nature of
actors' self-presentations.  (Habermas suggests that dramaturgical
action is parasitic on communicative action, in that it tends to emanate
from the lifeworld rather than the system.)  However, Habermas (1987, p.
46) also argues that Durkheim's notion of the collective consciousness
is helpful for his own theoretical program insofar as it represents for
Habermas a prelinguistic root of communicative action.  So even though
Habermas is overtly critical of Goffman, his discussion of Durkheim and
the ontogenesis of ritual unwittingly reveals a positive relation
between Durkheim and Goffman for which I have attempted to argue for
quite some.  The relation between Habermas and Durkheim--especially as
mediated through Durkheim--is complex and cannot be pursued further
here.  For more on this strand of inquiry see my "Durkheim's Cult of the
Individual as Civil Religion: Its Appropriation by Erving Goffman,"
Sociological Spectrum 13:251-275 (1993); and "Habermas, Goffman, and
Communicative Action: Implications for Professional Practice," American
Sociological Review 60:545-565 (1995).


Dr. James J. Chriss
Kansas Newman College
Sociology Department
chrissj-AT-ksnewman.edu

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