Subject: [HAB:] State and Lifeworld
Date: Sat, 06 Sep 2003 07:20:12 +0000



Fred amd Matt,

Thanks for your interesting replies. I have been able to deal with only some 
aspects of your post.


1) I do not know what the theory of state is in Habermas. It seems to me at 
least in broad strokes Habermas does invoke the spectre of violence and 
anarchy while trying to conceptualise the nature of modern state. It is 
primarily seen as the entity which implements laws and backs them by force 
(coercive force). The legitimacy of the state is derived from the fact that 
it is ‘chosen’ by people and people themselves through their representatives 
enact laws.

2) On the other hand Habermas presents state institutions such as 
Bureaucracy and market institutions as colonizing forces in the sense that 
they encroach on lifeworld and limit its capacity to initiate independent 
and reflective action.

3) Habermas’ conception of state is negative in this sense. I do not find in 
Habermas any conception of state in which it is conceived as positively 
sustaining a particular life. Please correct me if I have misread Habermas.

4)By positive conception of lifeworld I mean the conception, which does not 
only idealises lifeworld but traces positivities of both good and bad in 
human society to the lifeworld. Thus for example capitalism is not just a 
system which encroaches on lifeworld. It is also a specific lifeworld on its 
own right and creates its own immediacy. At this point I thought Fred your 
post was exception in the sense that you did mention that lifeworld 
positively produces its own malaises. The point of Foucault’s rejection of 
repressive hypothesis was to remind us that modern state does not only 
represses it is a creative positive force which constantly produces its own 
conditions of sustenance. It does not only ‘snatch’ from people, it governs 
them through ‘providing’ them. If we ignore this positive aspect of the 
state and its associated institutions and rationality we will underestimate 
its power.

5) I also think that lifeworld is more important concept in Habermas than 
his formal pragmatics and it would be more worthwhile to concentrate on 
different aspects of lifeworld which still remains mostly under researched. 
For example it would be interesting to elaborate on Habermas’ conception of 
‘decentration’, discussion of which does not seem to me to be sufficient.

6)I do not want to enter into quibbles with Matt over Foucault’s 
interpretation here but one thing which seems to me worth mentioning is that 
Foucault does not deny the repression of state, he only questions the way it 
is explained largely ‘negatively’ in the modern political theory. Again 
Foucault’s lasting contribution to state theory is that he gives us the 
conception of state not just as an institution but also as rationality. 
State, especially modern state cannot operate without establishing the 
hegemony of specific rationality of its own. Foucault’s point was to remind 
us that “liberty can come” not just from attacking this or that form of 
repression or this or that institution but through attacking ‘political 
rationality’s very roots”.

7) And finally I agree with Fred’s point that “It is difficult not to see a 
parallel between Habermas' fact-norm or strategic
rationality-communicative action differences and Foucault's power-resistance 
duality”. These parallels are not noticed because it is not realised that 
Foucault and Habermas have spent most of their research time on different 
poles of the same relation. While Foucault mostly spent his working life 
researching the power axis of this relation Habermas has been elucidating 
the possibilities of resistance. Both presuppose each other.


regards
ali

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