File spoon-archives/habermas.archive/habermas_2002/habermas.0203, message 45


Subject: HAB: Re: Re: Modernity vs. Premodernity (& auto-pro-anti-hegemonism)
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 13:17:56 -0800



----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas McDonald <mcdonald928-AT-yahoo.com>
To: <habermas-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Friday, March 08, 2002 9:54 AM
Subject: HAB: Re: Modernity vs. Premodernity (& auto-pro-anti-hegemonism)


>  I would have to stand firm to the claim that of all contemporary
> practitioners of religion, Islamic fundamentalists like al Qaeda and
> Hamas (and their anti-pluralist ideology) are the most threatening to
> the peace of the secular world.

Religion likely isn't at the bottom of any of these modernist /
postmodernist conflicts. And the idea of a "secular" peaceful world is
dubious. Radically different kind of communities live quite peacefully
together (the Amish in the US etc etc and so on). The postconventional
viewpoint is not anti-religious, nor is it incompatible with religious
worldviews (as Seyla Benhabib has persuasively argued). The point is not
that 'religion' is bad, anti-modern, etc. per se, but the way in which
certain fantasy structures about 'the other' are played out, unconsciously
so to speak. The more pressing point has more to do with paranoia ('do they
have something we don't?'), obsession ('we must remain true to our roots!' -
'we must avoid being impure!'), perversion ('I'm serving my Nation! - just
following orders'), phobia ('the other is taking our jobs!' and 'the other
is lazy and sapping our resources!') and so on. Anti-pluralism can live
quite happily in modernity or postmodernity. The more pressing issue is the
political economy, which is a significant contributor to the way in which a
nation, for instance, organizes enjoyment and thus carries out its
pathologies through policy. Social relations are always antagonistic, but
they don't have to be militarianly violent.

ken



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