Subject: Re: [HAB:] state and lifeworld [Matt]
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2003 04:31:59 +0000


Hi Ali,

Part of Habermas's *lack of charm* is his pragmatic realism about what 
*freedom* is available/desirable/possible in the sort of social systems that 
tend to be the object domain of his analyses. On one level there is a gulf 
separating the type of freedom someone like myself (living in a relatively 
wealthy, democratic liberal democratic state) envisages, and say the freedom 
envisaged by an Iraqi who detested Saddam's regime. Alongside conceptions of 
political freedom there is also freedom from material depravation which 
people who have not enough food, water or medicine may envisage etc. This is 
obvious and I am NOT suggesting you are unaware of these distinctions :-).

This is why I agree with certain of your comments that JH and Foucault are 
coming at the same thing from different but not necessarily opposing places. 
I think Foucault better theorizes the type of freedom available to social 
actors beneath the institutional guaranteed freedom theorized by Habermas. 
As has been the case for a long time, it is how to balance the 
collective/subjective tension.

>1) As John McCumber perceptively writes both Habermas and Foucault 
>“construe freedom in terms of situations, and not subjects” (McCumber, 
>Philosophy and freedom : Derrida, Rorty, Habermas, Foucault: 3). If this 
>characterisation of their work is correct then the possibility of freedom 
>and the project of freedom in large part dependa on the correct analysis of 
>the situation (the present).

Do you agree re: Foucault & *situations*? It seems a radical reading of 
Foucault's aesthetic of self creation.
-------------------
Yes, in spite of what I said earlier, I agree that aspects of Foucault's 
work still do pertain critically to the present. The point I would like to 
press, however, is the extent to which the histories and ontologies of the 
present formulated and disseminated over the last 30 years, that have drawn 
on Foucault's and Habermas's work, have been coopted into restrictive 
processes of social governance.

In other words, Foucault has helped - in a not inconsiderable way - to 
*shape* the cultural, philosophical and political present (Habermas also, 
Derrida also etc). A re-examination of their work on the present is required 
in light of the impact their work has had on the present. In other words, 
the present just ain't the same as it was. Unless - and I am very 
sympathetic to this p.o.v - the *present* doesn't change all that much. But, 
then, I am such a structuralist.

>2) But the present should not be construed in narrow terms. I think 
>Foucault’s insights about state are even not formulated clearly in the 
>literature let alone developing them and critiquing them. I think 
>Foucault’s insights about the state are very relevant to our present, the 
>present which is constituted and sustained by, to a large extent, what 
>Foucault calls capitalist state.

Couldn't agree more. The ironism in Foucault's analyses of modern capitalism 
are spine-tingling. Except for a philosopher of freedom he tends to 
underestimate the degree of *free* complicity involved in processes of 
capitalist subjection. Any social critique that tends to dope-ify or dumb 
down the *masses* i think misses the point.

After all, isn't there a bit of fascism in us all? This is the upshot of one 
of James' comments, I thought. The conditions for oppression and domination 
are manifest in the generalized desire for comfort/social order.
-------------
Strongly disagree & agree :-)

Habermas was widely criticised in the 1970s by orthodox Marxists for moving 
away from the paradigm of production. But that's not exactly the issue:

>3) I am not sure about Habermas’ views about the state yet. One thing which 
>is clear to me is that Habermas considers capitalism in a very narrow terms 
>and largely limits it to capitalist economy and markets. But capitalism is 
>more than that. It is not just economy. Capitalism is economy as well as 
>polity. It is a system as well as lifeworld. It is in this sense that I say 
>Habermas has a ‘negative’ conception of state.

Aren't you in danger of falling into the economist fallacy: ALL is 
economics? The capitalist system just happens to do a VERY good (sic) job of 
maintaining social order and providing the material and existential things 
people require to stave off anomie. It could be argued that modern 
capitalism is a contingent historical phenomena.

>He sees state as a separate entity from the ‘civil society’ and in fact 
>this separation as one of the great achievements of our modernity.

Yes and this rosey picture is VERY frustrating. I think part of JH's 
strategy is to suggest that we are NOT powerless against the 
military/industrial?political elite. His work is about trying to motivate 
engagement in the public sphere. My thesis - in part - examines the deficits 
in the persuasive capacity of Habermas's programme. My conclusion is that it 
is lacking :-), but with good reason!
--------------
No argument with this:

>For Foucault on the other hand modern state extends its roots through the 
>creation of civil society.

Fair go Ali: remember for JH's extreme nostalgia for the golden olde days of 
the late-C18th when civil society was young and full of hope :-). Now it is 
cynical and corrupt. What happened? Was it just the big, bad capitalist 
wolf?

>Thus civil society is not the other of the state but the medium through 
>which it extends its powers beyond. But state in the context is not 
>restricted to government or coercive or administrative institutions.

but would like to extend this:

>It is rather a that forms the basis not only of soicatiotion but also of 
>individuation.

What I like about Foucault is that he is prepared to get his hands dirty 
with the power laden face-to-face interactions that occur in the social 
world. However, IMO Foucault (and why should he do otherwise) was too 
fixated on historical Reason and how it gets used etc.

I would like more about what bastards people can be to each other with or 
without the capitalist state. Sure some of the bastardry is attributable to 
external- oppression-internalized but a lot of it isn't ;-). On the other 
hand, contra-Hobbes it isn't *entirely* true that it is a war of all against 
all. But it isn't entirely UNtrue either. A little more Hobbes may be needed 
in the mix. A little more *human nature* methinks.

In many ways the issue has alway been a normative one for critical social 
theorists: how much human nature, how much nurture/culture. It ALL gets 
coopted so might as well tell it as it is.

So I find Foucault's conception of a "specific political rationality" too 
exclusive when it comes to working out the order of things, too 
functionalist. But then I don't expect any one theorist to get it all right! 
Some of the early F.S critical social psychology mixed with Foucault's 
ironist analysis of how capitalist subjection works starts to get at the 
factual core of the problem.

Question is: do we leave the normative component of the project to Habermas?

Over and Out,

MattP.

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