Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2002 15:04:14 -0800 (PST)
Subject: HAB: Bridging Life & Archive (re: Jeanne Curran, 0203.58)


Re: HAB: Can the HAB List archive evolve? [0203.58], by
Jeanne Curran

Jeanne:

Good to hear from you again!  Thanks for your reply. 

I recall last August, you wrote:

J: "I am … convinced as I follow your threads that those of
us approaching social justice … do have something to
contribute to theory. But I'm approaching this from the
trenches, … I do think exploring the role through which we
involve the community and real folks has to be connected to
the overall theoretical scheme. At least I know how
important that is to me.  And I'm beginning to recognize
how important it is to other folks like me" [0108.134]. "I
use art as a means of teaching, of healing, of breaking the
silence. Hence, my interest in aesthetics. And I cross over
into cultural theory 
without blinking. But my students cross with me…" [135].
"In summary, I'm trying to reach every soul that I can, and
engage them in academic discourse on the major issues we
face today.  And for me, theory is essential to such
discussion.  Students bring friends, siblings, parents,
children, and we find ways to engage them all" [138].

G: One category of that archival catalog of the JH list I
imagine might be called "Teaching: theory, practice and
philosophy." But would anyone’s postings *other than* yours
exhibit genuine engagement with the bridge between theory
and practice of teaching? Thank *you* for "standing" for
this interest of understanding. JH’s work, as an extended
"theory" of communicative action, dependent on
"appropriation" of theory to practice and practice to
theory ("Remarks….," _Justification & Application_)
profoundly addresses an interest in teaching as such. To my
mind, his work provides a conceptual architecture for
thinking about teaching that is incomparable to what
usually underlies "theory" of teaching in schools of
education. 

(By the way, in the HAB list archive, there are tens and
tens of instances of education-theoretic
exchanges—especially between myself and Ken McK., Steve C.
and various others--but a search of the HAB archive through
its own "search" field yeilds NO instances of the word
‘education’, even though the *subject line* of one of my
postings is "Habermas and philosophy of education"
[0011.27].) 

Jeanne [yesterday]: "I still teach on my own times and own
terms, over Dear Habermas,
http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas, which is primarily
devoted to helping urban metropolitan ordinary folks at my
college understand the philosophical position of Habermas,
at least as well as I understand it, because I think that's
essential to real public discourse….I subscribe to learn.
And to make that learning accessible to my students and to
the local community, in the interest of promoting public
discourse. I think that professionals need to welcome us
non-professionals, because if we can't understand what
you're talking about (and I'm a very old Phi Beta Kappa),
then how are we ever going to encourage public discourse
amongst real people, not just scholars, but clerks and
teachers and mechanics?"

G: Amen. Believe it or not, I’m from the trenches, too,
having spent over a decade either teaching "special needs"
teenagers in an urban high school (Berkeley) or
participating in educational reform programs and research
for "vocational" young adults at a national level, *after*
my dissertation on JH’s work, "The Discourse of
Emancipatory Practice in Habermas’s Historical Materialism"
(1979), which I had the chance to discuss in conceptual
detail with JH in 1980. He invited me to study with him in
Germany, but I chose the trenches—until the early ‘90s.
Now, well, I’m pushing the envelop of interdisciplinary
metatheory, feeling to be somewhere in the future (as I was
in 1979, when I had integrated JH’s thinking of that time
with Derrida’s grammatology, long before JH addressed
"postmodernism" in his unsatisfactory way, in the
mid-‘80s). 

J: "I've had an awful time with the archive… I would like
to learn to use the archive effectively."

G: I don’t think that’s very feasible presently (e.g., my
comment above about 'education'). My query yesterday—a
mixed message of appeal to the silent majority, avowal of
especially philosophical interest, and exploration of the
notion of discursive archive, in terms of the HAB
list—expressed an interest in developing a sense of
discourse AS archive (while, by the way, "hearing" Derrida
say "Archive Fever"). 

J: "When a Hab list discussion fits what my students and I
are talking about I post it on my teaching site. And I try
to remember to write and ask if that's Ok, as I did with
Kenneth MacKendrick.  I would be more comfortable with
linking to the archives, if that would work."

G: That *could* work (inasmuch as the Spoons Collective
archive *survives*), but such would be more practical if
people wrote as if someone might wish to link to their
comments (which are so often impulsive). By saying
yesterday that there is much good work in the archive, I
was tacitly recognizing that most of what’s posted isn’t
memorable or generally useful (in my opinion). 

J: "I'm shy. And I can't think that anybody else on the
list wants to read this." 

G: I trust you’re wrong. (Gary's Ethic of Discourse,
principle "Close-to-Number-One": Trust, Generosity, and
Charity toward the capacity of the other, who is PRESUMED
to be as good and bright as "you", until clearly
otherwise.]

J: "I did post a question about Heath's book, but no one
answered."

G: Unfortunate. It was a good contribution. But, for my
part, the Heath thread wasn’t a topic I was engaged with,
so I yielded to my common feeling that I risk appearing to
dominate discussion (by default); I tend to resist replying
to postings which are (a) not addressed to me specifically
or (b) not responding to topics I’m sponsoring, so to
speak. I want to respond to your "Health" posting, and will
in a moment. 

J: "I'm too old for my feelings to be hurt, but it
confirmed my sense that I just didn't know how to fit in
here."

G: Alternative reading: The failure of John Wright (topic
"sponsor") to reply suggests the busyness of a fellow
teacher. To my mind, you "fit in here" *obviously*. 

J: "Had the same problem on PSN." 

G: What's PSN? 

J: "In some cases, I think I know more about what some of
these people are talking about than they do, but we read
different literature. I keep turning back to something
Freire or Seyla Benhabib said, and relating that to my own
extensive experience with local community people, and I
just can't figure out where that kind of expertise meets
with the Hab list."

G: I’d be glad to see you elaborate on this, given what
others might already know about your hermeneutical
condition: http://www.habermas.org/habermas04.htm  and
postings by you in late August, 2001. That is, please
elaborate beyond what you've already shared, if you have
time and want to. (Otherwise, other readers, see Jeanne's
site--especially the "Outsider" page URL in this paragraph,
and her August responses to others.)

Earlier this month, in your response (0203.11) to the Heath
book review, you wrote:

J: "… norms, like everything else, must  be open to
justification because otherwise,  in reifying some norms,
we  would cease to have the legitimacy Habermas seeks in
hearing all validity claims in good faith.  That's because
the validity claims are in fact embodied and embedded,
yes?"

G: Embodied and embedded indeed—variably in each person’s
individuated life-historical background, which JH theorizes
in terms of the lifeworld and "individuation through
socialization" (_Postmetaphysical Thinking_), which is the
"busyness" of developmental psychology, initiated
clinically by psychoanalysis. Thinking of embodiment,
initiated by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in the 1920s (surely in
the wake of Proust), by Habermas is evident as early as his
discussion of Dilthey in _Knowledge and Human Interests_,
which moves through psychoanalytically-conceived "ego
psychology" to moral-cognitive developmentality, in "Moral
Development & Ego Identity" (_Communication and the
Evolution of Society_) to JH’s analysis of lifeworldliness
in the "Introduction" of _Theory of Communicative Action_,
vol. 1 and the first half-or-so of volume 2. Such
embodiment is the background of the condition of
"application" in the appropriation of theory to practices
and practices to theory (mentioned above). 

J: "Now, is Joseph Heath agreeing or disagreeing with
that?"

G: Joe Heath was once a subscriber to this list and
irregular contributor, but I guess he lost interest. 

J: "And could someone tell me if that wouldn't also fit in
with what Seyla Benhabib is saying in Situating the Self:
‘What I propose is a procedural  reformulation of the
universalizability principle along the model of a moral
conversation in which the capacity to reverse perspectives,
that is,  the willingness to reason from the others' point
of view, and the  sensitivity to hear their voice is
paramount.’ (At. p.4 of the introduction.)

G: Yes, that fits. 

Benhabib, by the way, is apparently collapsing the
difference between the universalizability principle
(pertaining to a theory of institutionalization) and the
general conditions of genuineness for any shared
deliberation (whether or not "we" are aiming for
universalizability). The "capacity to reverse perspectives"
is the capacity for ordinary role reversal that is central
to JH’s sense of interactive development in moral-cognitive
development (e.g., see the CES essay referenced above and
"Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action," in the
same-titled collection of essays), which applies to any
good communicative activity (idealized or not)--as well as
"the Original Position" in Rawls' theory of justice. 

But the issue of "willingness" is very complex—what Steve
Chilton calls "the motivation problem," which got a lot of
discussion last September. To my mind, the basic issue is a
developmental one, thus an educational one, not a
therapeutic issue (or "emancipatory" one). We don’t know
*how* to sustain willingness, far more frequently than we
are suppressed when we *do* know how (though the complexity
of this differentiation includes suppression of the
opportunity to learn how, as well as sometime oppression of
opportunity when we are willing-and-able, especially in
"developing" nations). 

In fact, the need for education is so great, that the
actuality of oppression pales by comparison—in inner
cities, in rural Africa or in the "-istan" nations, such as
Afghanistan (and, by the way, inside George Bush’s head,
re: "the axis of Evil" and so STUPIDLY today, re: nuclear
targeting). 

"Peace and Love," yes,

Gary




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