Subject: HAB: Ken, Gary, et al.
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 10:25:47 -0600


The open letter from Ken was interesting.  Although certainly some
people on this list put a lot on the line with regard to their own
personal worlds, the actual claims they are making to an audience-this
particular electronic forum-doesn't amount to a hill of beans with
regard to the broader picture.  What do we have, maybe five or six
active participants on this list.?  Maybe another dozen who pop in
occasionally to see whether something interesting is being said about
Habermas?  In this sense, forums such as these are useful as spectacle
and raw consumption, much the way professional wrestling functions.
Much of what goes on here, although real enough for the participants who
have a good portion of their self invested in what goes on here, is
largely rumor, almost attaining the status of a "nonevent."  Many of us
here would do well to revisit Erving Goffman's work on the presentation
of self and impression management to remind ourselves of how relatively
inconsequential all this is.

But in our own ways, away from the shouting and the posturing, the life
of the mind will go on and the analysis of Habermas, Goffman, Durkheim,
Mead, and Parsons will continue apace.  These sorts of electronic social
gatherings are poor substitutes for the real work of scholarship
conducted face-to-face, at scholarly conferences, in our classrooms,
amongst our colleagues, friends, and loved ones.


James J. Chriss
Kansas Newman College
Sociology Department


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