Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 10:27:16 -0400
From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <bradmcc-AT-cloud9.net>
Subject: Re: The Simulation of Surveillance


kenneth.mackendrick wrote:
> 
> Brad wrote: Might you each focus on
> > a couple *key* points?  "Less is [often, at least] more"....
> 
> I think most, but not all, postmodern "theory" harbours an
> anti-humanist strain following Heidegger's critique of humanism.  I
> think modernity is unfulfilled by its own measure - reason,
> happiness, freedom, and desire - which means that MORE work
> needs to be done not less.

I am unclear what this "anti-humanism" consists of.  Does it
consist in the individual suppressing his or her individuality
in the service of some external institution (etc.), like Heidegger
apparently encouraged his students in the 30s to plunge into the
Nazi spirit?  Is it generally "sacrificial", self-denigrating,
etc.?  If not, then how is it anti-humanist?  Perhaps we need
more modernity, not less?  Are social 
relations of domination and submission, e.g.
boss-worker, *really* modernist (Enlightenment?), etc.?

> 
> I don't think theory can tell people how to live their lives.

I would say that theory if part of the Lifeworld, and, as such,
like everything else, is (albeit paradoxically), in the end,
an object of judgment rather than the canon of judgment.
Even if a theory seems absolutely true, we might still
choose to act contrary to it, for *rational*, critically
defensible reasons (which, however, is different from
naively / enthusiastically following some dogma or ethnic
lifeform without regard for truth, science, etc.).

> 
> I think some things are too complicated to be adequately discussed
> on email or reduced to key points.

Definitely I would agree with your second point.  And I think it
is at least a big *challenge* to to try to fit many subjects
constructively
into e-mail discussion.

> 
> I think technology tends to be a fetish which replaces rather than
> augments human relationships - and the faith that society places in
> technology is a theological faith - in other words - a
> cognitively regressive faith that replaces enlightenment with myth
> through smoke and mirrors and computer chips.

I would largely agree with you, but, following the theme that
we may need to become more modern, perhaps the problem is not
technology per se, but its being taken as *the whole*, rather
than being situated in a broader perspective of disciplined
study and cooperative "government" of the 
Lifeworld (the exact sciences as specialized
areas within the purview of the human (hermeneutic, etc.) sciences
and politics understood as the universal human activity
of deciding what to do in life).

> 
> ken "the confessor" mackendrick

Thanks for the "summary"

\brad mccormick

-- 
   Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
   Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.

Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc-AT-cloud9.net
(914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
-------------------------------------------------------
Visit my website ==> http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/


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