Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 19:08:25 +0000
Subject: HAB: HABERMAS, ANARCHISM & CULTURE AS LANGUAGE
From: "Stefan Szczelkun" <stefan-AT-szczelkun.greatxscape.net>


I am spurred to contribute after Ken's mention of Habermas as a 
closet anarchist. The appendices to BFN certainly reveal radical
intentions and suggest the importance of fora of debate/argument that
are not dependent on systemic interests. My own interest in Habermas
is in the possibility of theory that can radicalise our ideas of
democracy in an anarchist direction (The best discussion of this I
found is Blaug 1999). I find that many people read Volume 1 of The
Theory of Communicative Action and don't get onto Volume 2 which is
where
all the radical explication is.

Without a background in philosophy I have been attempting to use
The Theory of Communicative Action as a framework from which to
evaluate an autonomous 'underground' cultural Collective called
Exploding Cinema, that has been active in London since late 1991, for
my PhD at the Royal College of Art. In TCA Habermas schematises a
space for non-verbal and less formal communications media but when it
comes down to it he seems to retreat into a formal definition of
language and reason which implies written discourses or at best
hierachiales communicative media. And points to rituals of
legitimation that are legalistic rather than street wise.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else on the list has written
about this or has thoughts. Of course many of the critiques of TCA
hinge on the aesthetic aporia that seems to result from this
formulation of reason (most usefully discussed in D'Entreves &
Benhabib, eds. 1996, I have written a draft chapter attempting a
summary of this debate from a Foucauldian position if anyone is
interested).

It seems necessary to boldly reconceptualise 'language' within a more
wholistic field of human communications before TCA can become a
revolutionary tool. Or at the
very least before it becomes of widespread use in the communications,
media and art fields.

As a practising artist of some thirty years it seems self evident
that culturally intentioned communications contribute formally and
informally to the discourses in all sense media that ultimately
sythesize in shifts in our consensii and understanding. And that
literary discourses cannot disengage themselves from informal
cultural and oral or performative discourses. Are there any other
artists out there reading Habermas?

Stefan
Please reply to s.szczelkun-AT-rca.ac.uk  


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