From: "Ali Rizvi" <ali_m_rizvi-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: HAB: Foucault vs. Habermas
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 17:31:23
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<P>Phil</P>
<P>I have basic agreement with what you said in this mail, I will however note minor disagreements or some further points below. I do agree with your sense of basic convergence between Habermas and Foucault, but Habermas' reading in twelve lectures itself mitigates against this (as you yourself concede at the end).</P>
<P> The basic difference I guess is this. While Habermas think that a transcendental conception of reason (what he calls a 'comprehensive conception of reason soemwhere) is necessary for the establishment of emancipatory society, Foucault thinks this relationship between reason and emancipatory society as more complex. There is no necessary link between the rein of reason and free society. Freedom needs permanent struggle to be realised. In sum freedom is a performance it can not be automatically secured through institutionalisation etc (although institutionalisation might be needed as its precondition). This distinction between freedom as performance needs permanent reactivation of the revolutionary moment. Then their is the crucial question of power. Sure Habermas also consider the steering power of money and media etc. but the singular contribution of Foucault has been to determine the specific mode of power in modern societies. In this context Foucault's rejection of 'repressive hypothesis' is important. Foucault relaises that the mode of functioning of power in modern societies is primarily productive and hence the importance of freedom as the principle of governance. Now Habermas either does not understand this or does not want to understand this. My own inclination is that second option is more probable.</P>
<P>With these convoluted remarks I will now turn to your comments:</P>
<P>[P]Since I have learned a lot from both Habermas and Foucault, I want to<BR>resist this characterization... How?</P>
<P>I am sure they are both great thinkers of the second half of the twentieth century</P>
<P>1) Marx: people never relinquish what they have won, and it is the<BR>desire<BR>not to forfeit the fruits of civilization that produces thunderclaps<BR>such<BR>as the Revolutions of 1640 and 1688.</P>
<P>Sure this is a very relevant observation. But there are at least two interpretation of these event. Negri in his recent book written with Hart has termed this phenomenon as two modernities or something like that. The basic ambivalence is created because the crucial conception of freedom around which these events and this civilisation revolves is itself ambivalent. It can be both a principle of empanciaption and means to further enslavement. I think this is a very basic insight of Foucault which is not realised by Habermas. At least I do not know it. </P>
<P>[P]Revolution born of an essentially conservative goal! Suggests that the revolutionary must be able to see what we have won, and how that might be threatened by other elements of the present. Suggests also that talk of the present system may lead us astray if it connotes a<BR>non-contradictory totality.</P>
<P>Sure both revolution and conservatism are relative terms. But there can be a bit different perception that revolution was betrayed in the first place, that it was never our revolution from the outset. That task is still unfinished.</P>
<P>2) Chesterton: man in revolt has become practically useless for all<BR>purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his<BR>right to<BR>rebel against anything.</P>
<P>It is true that Foucault talks of total transformation but this has very specific meanings for him which does not amount to rebelling against everything. Limit attitude of which Foucault speaks consist of taking the present seriously and having an ironical stance towards the present at the same time. However Foucault realises that " (a) transformation that remains within the same mode of thought, a transformation that is only a way of adjusting the same thought more closely to reality of things can merely be a superficial transformation" (PPC p. 156). One can legitimately wonder whether Habermas is doing something similar.</P>
<P>[P]None of this is the last word on the matter, of course... But maybe we<BR>want<BR>to avoid trying to classify thinkers as conservative or radical, tout<BR>court.</P>
<P>I do agree with you. It is all relative nothing is absolute in this vein. But I think for making crucial distinctions shine forth we need such contrasts often. I guess that only constraint one needs is to stay away from polemics, and being personal. There is nothing personal about thought in this sense.</P>
<P>regards<BR>ali</P>
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