Subject: Re: HAB: liberal eugenics
Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 11:05:58 


Bob,

thanks for the indulgence :-)

>...I
>don't see where this intersects with Power in such a way as to offer any
>hope?...what does it have to offer those of us whose interest is not
>scholarship?

As someone who is interested in - but still an apprentice of - scholarship I 
will have to ruminate upon these themes. I don't think it pays to either 
overestimate or underestimate the contribution the social sciences make to 
the ongoing *regulation* of the sorts of social systems Habermas mainly 
talks of.

There are intersections with Power, but not in such a way as to offer too 
much hope, alas (?). The pathos of Hope is a fairly dangerous player in the 
dynamics of ideology-production and ideology-maintenance and social control 
anyway.

It's the dilemma of critical social theory production clearly outlined by 
Horkheimer and Adorno in their _DoE_: good i.e. effective critical social 
theories intersect with Power and consolidate the over arching social 
structures against which the critical theory was first set out to confront 
etc. Thus a sort of damned if you do/ damned if you don't dilemma unless 
quietism or negative dialectics or liberating mimesis or JH's endless 
discourse models appeal.

There always is an intersection with Power...it's almost re-assuring!

Cheers,

MattP

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