Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 12:46:19 -0700 (PDT)
From: Gary E Davis <gedavis1-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: HAB: Habermas and the Internet


Here's some things:

>From owner-habermas-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu  Wed Jan 26 20:11:42
2000
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 15:11:24 -0500 (EST)
from Jan, 2000 (message 0001.24):

From: "Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law"
<froomkin-AT-law.miami.edu>
Subject: JH in cyberspace

I have a preliminary draft of an article that argues JH's best
practical
discourse is instantiated in certain Internet standards discourses.
It's
called "Habermas-AT-Discourse.net: Towards a Critical Theory of
Cyberspace"
and I would welcome comments.  The article is readable at:

http://www.discourse.net/ILSdraft-nov99.pdf

---------------------------------------------------------------------
from 0006.52

No one had yet imagined the WorldWideWeb, when Habermas developed the
colonization "thesis" (actually: critical analytical model). Even
given a continuing usefulness of the colonization model, there's a
stunning "control revolution" (Andrew Shapiro, 1999; ISBN:
189162086X) ongoing, which increasingly hybridizes colonization with
potential democratization. "Potential", because access doesn't itself
cause participation. Indeed, one might tenably argue that citizen
passivity in "democracy" may be minimally affected by increased ease
of access or electronic democracy. Relative to will formation,
colonization may be continuing undiminished by "the Information and
Network Society". Or maybe not. It's an empirical question, at least
to a significant degree. So, I would respectfully disagree with
Eduardo (6/29/00) that Habermas' "monumental TCA has become
anachronistic" (and ask, Eduardo, why you think "Habermas has
realized that" etc.). To venture that "we have been overtaken by the
Information and Network society" seems to make the colonization model
*more* relevant--though I disagree that we have been overtaken. 

The basic reality is at least that social evolution is happening
faster than theorists can theorize it comprehensively, let alone
*critical* theorists having a secure standpoint for critique. It
seems to me that theory (and critique) only realistically hope for
merely *partial* theorization of an evolution in which we all are
participants, and this applies to Habermas' intentions as well. But
who are we to second-guess Habermas' intentions? In any event, for my
part, I never believed that Habermas intended TCA as a magnum opus
that could be antedated; rather, as a work-in-progress (as set of
constructive / critical readings) in the career of his own
philosophy. Practically, this means that TCA begins a reformulation
of thinking already mature in the mid-70s--a reformulation that
doesn't pretend, in TCA, to be whole, requiring MCCA and J&A
philosophically, and BFN politically. Taken in toto--TCA, MCCA, J&A
and BFN--an approach to social evolution (conceived in the mid-70s)
is available that is sociologically integrated (Habermas' intention
with TCA), "philosophically" grounded (MCCA and J&A) and practically
employed (J&A, BFN, _Inclusion of the Other_, and Habermas'
participation in EU public discourse).

All this work, it seems to me, fundamentally expresses an engagement
*with* processes of social evolution--endeavoring to foster
evolutionary processes--without any Leninist arrogance about leading
such processes. It's easy, though, to fall into this outdated idiom
of leading the revolution, as I read in a few of Kevin Olson's
otherwise stimulating comments on colonization yesterday, which I'd
like to comment on, but in a separate posting.

Best regards,

Gary

-------------------------------------------------------------------

An online article about Habermas and the Internet, 

http://socwww.cwru.edu/~atp5/habermas.html

quotes a bit from interchanges on this list, concluding that we are
"a strange species indeed." But that discussion has a 2001 link to a
course on "Sociology of the Internet" that could be useful.


---------------------------------------------------

Several months back, there was an online workshop on Critical Theory
and the Web, I think, at Ohio U., and I inquired about Mark Poster's
participation, but got no reply from the Ohio U. sponsor. If you
contact Poster at UC Irvine, I bet he'd be very helpful. His recent
books would also be very useful, since they are on the Internet and
media (search: Mark Poster at Amazon.com).

Regards,

Gary




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