Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 19:59:21 EDT
Subject: Re: [HAB:] Communicative Action in everyday contexts


I would like to suggest that we simply highlight, instead of dissect, a key  
passage of a post and then respond, otherwise we end up with lengthy 
essay-like  responses which are time-comsuming and difficult to respond to, as below.   
Fred W.
 
 
In a message dated 8/26/2004 4:19:59 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
sue-AT-mcphersons.freeserve.co.uk writes:

<FREDWELFARE-AT-aol.com> wrote:
> Sue and all,
>   
> I think that the most critical issue for both the functionality  and  
> legitimation or justification of communicative action, and  its criticism 
of  strategic 
> action initiatives, is to discuss  and understand how communicative  action 
> works or can work in  everyday contexts.  Whether CA can be  instituted in 
a 
>  particular situation or as an ongoing pattern may or may not  involve  
ascribed 
> role characteristics of actors/speakers.  

I  wonder if CA is something that can be "instituted" or whether 
it just  develops over time, if the circumstances are right, if the 
actors are  competent, and if they want to communicate.

Sue,
 
If educational reform ever actually got authentic and impacted on  
communicative competency instead of merely reproducing relations of domination  and 
hegemony, then the potential situation of social revolution, by which I  refer to 
damaging forms of violence, would not occur.
But, in the midst of reactionary and counter-revolutionary movements by  
which I refer not only or simply to the typical ignorance of everyday public  
contexts, but to the revolutionary actions of criminals (note the incarceration  
rate particularly of certain minorities), the intractable influence of white  
supremacy and mafia-like groupments, and their Foucault-like indicators:  
anti-terrorist hybrids made of military and police multiplied beyond reason, I  am 
surprised that communicative intent takes the limiting and subtle forms it  
does when it is not reacting to the all too common insult.  In other words,  it 
surprises me that fistfighting on the street is so uncommon, however, I do  
read the daily blotter!!!!
 
<FREDWELFARE-AT-aol.com> wrote:
Whether  it  does and why seems to me to 
> be the crux of the matter.   Before we can  address autonomy, we have to 
> address individuality  and  individualization.  What is an individual, when 
is a 
>  body an individual,  and then whether or not said individual is autonomous 
 as 
> perceived through  her/his ethical actions.   

sue-AT-mcphersons.freeserve.co.uk writes:Individuals are often not as  
autonomous as they would like to think they are, or as they try to be. Social  forces 
and the actions
of less ethically-oriented individuals can act against  the 
individual actions of others.


But, at this time in our history and in our society, the criteria of  being 
an individual, that is, being autonomous in the sense of independent (who  
would understand Kant?) is a substantial matter as this is the entity or body  
that does not simply vote but that reproduces biologically which is not true of  
those bodies that have not reached the definitive - legal and cultural - 
status  of being an individual, not to mention the many other legal capacities of 
such  an entity.  


<FREDWELFARE-AT-aol.com> wrote:

I perceive attributes flying all 
> over the place  and  ascribing roles to bodies which either castigate their 
>  individualization  or their autonomy, entirely for the strategic  gain.  

sue-AT-mcphersons.freeserve.co.uk writes:
One can't always know the reasons, but yes, I agree, others
apply  attributes and roles to others which can do harm.


So this is precisely why I am surprised that 1). communicative action  
orientations and dispositions have not mediated the potential for social  revolution 
(rejection of the law), and 2). that the potential for social  revolution 
even in the minimal and local contexts of situation so frequently  becomes 
explicit.


<FREDWELFARE-AT-aol.com> wrote:
At some > point,  Habermas  will have to address Darwinism and the 
intensified zero-sum locus > of   interaction.  In an engagement where actors do not 
redeem or justify   
> their claims validly, by for example mimicking the institutional  authority 
of  
> the nuclear family,  

sue-AT-mcphersons.freeserve.co.uk writes:
Do you mean by putting some in the role of children, and ones
in  positions of more power as patriarch and mother (in this
case, this  list)?


I mean the valence that is given to the paternal role (whether actual or  not 
in the given situation) at the risk of violence.  In this sense, I am  
interpetting social reality in psychoanalytic terms, but the words themselves,  
"father," or "papa" and their opposites
along with terms of degradation (the Darwinian problematic) in the  feminine, 
coupled to the sense of risk, warning, and violence.  To me,  taking up a 
paternal role with regard to another is as provocative as taking up  the 
Promethean or 'young turk,' (many homonyms come to mind: punk for example)  position.  
In many contexts, these roles become inflamed as jealousy is  aroused.
 
<FREDWELFARE-AT-aol.com> wrote:

t is not an option to retreat or close communication by  > the  insisting on 
a redemption before communication resumes, this only puts the   > CA actor in 
the void, which does not even exist.>   

sue-AT-mcphersons.freeserve.co.uk writes:
If the CA actor is in the "void", then surely this particular void 
DOES  exist.  Existence can be fragmented, and even fall completely
apart at  times, probably, but even the void cannot last forever.


The void is a very dangerous place to go because it involves the demand for  
cultural change and therefore the rejection of the historical culture; it is 
the  active response to cultural roles which are considered illegitimate,  
unjustified, and/or immoral.
 
Fred Welfare



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