Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2004 10:27:47 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [HAB:] An answer to "No ask-No answer"



--- "Raul A. Rodriguez" <rarodriguez-AT-unvm.edu.ar>
wrote:
> I ask and I look for answers about the Philosophy in
> a Time of Terror.
> 
> Is the theory of Habermas only useful to discuss
> what it means "consensus"?

No, obviously. 

> Who does dare to think of the pathologies of the
> capitalist society, today?

I do. This began in high school, in 1966. It continued
in college, as a Marxist stupidly advocating violent
revolution, then as a student of Marcuse's work and
the journal _Telos_ from its inception (and throughout
the 1970s), also as a graduate student under a man who
 studied with Georg Lukacs, and as doctoral student
under the editor of _Telos_. 

But I became more interested in problem-solving than
mere diagnosis. My dissertation, "The Discourse of
Emancipatory Practice in Habermas's Historical
Materialism," 1979, was overtly post-critical. I spent
many hours with JH, in Berkeley, 1980, discussing the
key aspects of that argument, and he invited me to
study with him in Frankfurt; but I didn't follow up.
Rather, I got wrapped up in the U.S. educational
reform movement of the 1980s. I have lived the "and"
of theory and practice, especially in terms of
professional education.

> Who does dare to think with habermasians categories
> if the current régime of USA it is Fascist?

That prospect has been a common theme, among countless
others, for decades in the U.S. There is complete
freedom of communication about that prospect in the
U.S. Now, it's still part of a marginal literature
that I don't take seriously. The U.S. is not fascist;
it's not even authoritarian. You would do better to
point your concern toward Russia, where journalistic
freedom risks death. 

Gary






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