Subject: Re: [HAB:] HAB: Germans vs. those Americans [the whole thing]
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 06:15:32 +0000


Gary,

Your post raised an issue that I have given some thought. When I first 
started posting to the Spoons List (circa 1999) I found it a fairly academic 
and expert forum, which I appreciated as a novice trying to find a way in to 
Habermas. If the archives are perused there is a healthy number of 
*academic* or well-versed contributors. Yourself, Joe Heath, Eduardo 
Medieta, Stephen Chilton and, OF COURSE, Jeremy Shapiro, who still keeps an 
eye on proceedings :-). Over the last four years there have been some 
excellent exchanges (who can forget you and Ken belting it out!), the debate 
on Habermas's marxism I remember well. Martin Matustik at one stage posted.

More and more post-graduates like myself tuned in, and - sadly - more and 
more of the experts tuned out. You are to be congratulated for remaining 
active and starting the Yahoo! list as an alternative online forum. My own 
sense of what happened is that *real* academics felt uncomfortable with the 
risky anarchism potentially emergent online. And this is exactly what 
happened post-911.

Looking back, I regret my contributions to the **bad** noise that dominated 
the list over the last two years. BUT it was an explosive time that shook 
everyone. It would be difficult to understand if the repercussion from 911 
DIDN'T have an impact on a List devoted to critical social philosophy. It 
seems to have died down and in the last three months there has been a return 
to more pertinent and focused Habermasian studies.

I think you are *on the money* with your comments here, and I applaud your 
temerity in expressing this publically:

>This discussion list is by no means representative of the
>English side of the AND, of course. You could make a list
>of the leading readers of Habermas English, as well as the
>contributors to widely available anthologies about
>Habermas' work, and you find none of them contributing to
>this list, even in a spirit of fostering engagement with
>Habermas' work by a broad public (so important to Habermas
>himself; cf. TCA2: 326middle-to-bottom). I bet that not a
>one the insiders care at all whether or not this discussion
>list flourishes; they've got their seminars and each other
>(It's an inner industry affair, you see---the university in
>advanced industrial society [AIS] and the potential of
>philosophical social theory to affect AIS's careers within
>knowledge-intensive power).

As a *way outsider* (in terms of status and geography) that you even 
consider the following a possibility indicates the degrees of separation 
between *inside* *just outside* and *way outside*. I would be VERY surpised 
if Thomas McCarthy even knew there was a Spoons List or a Yahoo:

>A note of support  from Thomas
>McCarthy merely applauding the thankless efforts here of a
>few engaged readers could be a great asset to validating
>this kind of forum. But the "real" Habermasians don't have
>time for that, for all they need is each other.

In the interests of being fair, there is also the "young gun" syndrome. 
Posting from a *real* Habermasian invites either slavish fawning, or worse, 
hostility. So, why would you bother? On the FS List there are a number of 
*names* who lurk, and I suspect the same is the case on this List. It would 
be useful to the rest of us if they would participate but I understand why 
they wouldn't. Time constraints, questionable benefits to them, 
disadvantageous outcomes for their research, unwillingness to make available 
current work, lots of things.
-----------------------
>Yes, the real work goes on in the classroom. "Publish in
>refereed journals, if you care so much," they say in
>effect; the online medium doesn't serve the public
>intellectual very importantly, they say, in effect, by
>their incognizance (or lamentable silence). Those who
>really care just don't have time for supporting this medium
>through their acknowledgement of it. So, it's no wonder
>that its content is of no interest (or of marginal
>interest) to the readers of Habermas-oriented communicative
>action (i.e., surveyors of the winds of communicative
>action in light of Habermas' work). At best, the Spoons
>list (or the Yahoo! list) might be some data for someone's
>interest in "Habermas & the Internet" as a sociological
>curiosity.

To be honest with you I would like to hear more from those perhaps less 
credentialled lurkers who may feel intimidated and desist from posting.
-------------------------------
>And hold onto a kind of private
>joke that something really useful might happen here, be
>archived, but be largely overlooked until way down the
>road. Someone will have the last laugh, be it the naïf here
>or the readers of communicative action who still find the
>Internet to be a curiosity.

The internet as a research tool and medium for discussion has only started 
to flourish with this generation of critical social thinkers. There are some 
excellent e-journals. Perhaps a refereed Habermas e-journal is what is 
needed? Like you Gary I see the internet as my prime *outlet* in the future. 
Not only does it save trees but it is nice to make material FREELY and 
easily available.

There you go: editor G.Davis. I'd be happy to contribute effort in one way 
or another. All we need is a young, enthusiastic and web smart Habermasian 
grad student to do all the work :-).

Cheers,

MattP.

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