Jeanne Curran
Thu, 25 Apr 2002 20:45:44 -0700
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Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 20:42:53 -0700
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From: Jeanne Curran <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: HAB: Re: 3 reasons (this place stinks)
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Tom, I wasn't making that assumption. Nor was I assuming that my students would take Ken's comments as a serious indication of your or his ultimate position. These aren't essays we're writing here. It's a discussion. And sometimes, in the midst of serious discussion, we lose patience with and poke fun at one another, and we laugh, not because we aren't serious, but because such play relieves the tension. That's Henri Bergson, I believe.
In our discussions with advanced undergraduates and graduates in an urban commuter college, most of us have grown up and lived our lives excluded from such discussions. (That was one of Bourdieu's complaints about academic discourse, wasn't it?) We take academic discussions too seriously - for to be included matters so much to us. We need to learn to step back a little, play, and laugh at ourselves, in a good-natured way. I certainly don't suppose that you were expressing a sexist attitude when you referred to males. But I really didn't get that you were offering a hidden compliment to the women. I guess I'm not that sophisticated. But my kids will look at that and laugh at me for being oversensitive. That isn't anti-feminist; it's just friendly laughter. As I recall, Bergson suggested that we laugh at raideur , at at the one who cannot release the tension that comes with the fear that he/she might say or do something laughable him/herself.
Habermas speaks of the tension that permeates our need to grasp the interdependence of facts and norms, of the individual and the lifeworld. Or at least I think he does, as I recall BFN. There is unbearable tension when we invite those who will carry on this learning to join us in academic discussion - but join us they must, or have such avenues closed off to them in the future. Last night three of my graduate students voiced the desire to join the Hab list and follow some of our discussions. And if I have a hard time occasionally figuring out the conceptual linking flashed about, they'll have an even harder time. But if not now, with us, where? when? Now that I've retired, I should have enough time to consider all this theoretically, and maybe write some real theory. But it's ordinary folks, non-theorists, concerned, aware, and alert citizens who will carry that theory into praxis, without which it will not flower as we hope.
Ken says he's a theorist, not an activist. I have lots of thoughts on that, amongst which, someone said, and I think it was Ken again, that it doesn't matter what Habermas thinks of these issues, for he is a theorist who offers a structure for addressing the issues. It isn't his thought on the topic we seek, but how we might successfully think it out. But then Habermas and Ken leave the praxis to us, the ordinary folks. Our interpretation of their theoretical positions will determine in part the application of the theories to issues that matter. In that sense, I, as a theorist, albeit a lowly one, want to take an active role in the teaching of ordinary folk to understand what we've so painstakingly thought out. I think that understanding how and worrying about how to do that are the tasks of a theorist. And that's scaryto me as both a theorist and as a student.
<p>As a student, it's intimidating to be invited into anyone's backstage if you've not been included at the dinner table where the norms were passed on. Don't know about you, but I'm scared they'll figure out that I don't belong and throw me out. Learning to laugh, learning to play with the ideas, makes it a little easier for me and my students to not be overwhelmed by the academic discourse. And if we're going to raise the general educational and thought level of a global society, I think it's important we be included.
<p>As a theorist, I resent it when people understand me too quickly. "Je deteste ceux qui m'entendent trop vite." Andre Gide, Les Journaux. I even resent it when people are sure that I still think the same thing I said months ago. Existence precedes essence. I know, it's outdated, but I liked Sartre when I was young, and my essence just isn't stationary. I really do think I need to follow through on the communication, and be sure that those who will put the theory into practice are on the same page with me.
Now I realize that Lewis will say that my emphasis here reflects my "sweet and sour" orientation. Maybe it does, but, you know, I think not. When Habermas says that legitimacy requires that every validity claim be considered in good faith, I think he's saying the same thing. The validity claim, as I understand it, of those of us who were excluded because our lifeworlds didn't offer the dinner tables that might have taught us the norms of academic discourse, requires a good faith hearing that should include tolerance at the dinner table until we learn the norms. Learning the norms is relational, and maybe that entails a different way of knowing. But, again, I don't think so. I'm planning to look at Habermas' discussion of Kohlberg on that. But it seems to me that a major part of our relational learning consists of learning where the dinner tables are, how to gain access to them, and how to maintain our self esteem through the tension of acquiring so many different norms and balancing so many different interpersonal relationships.
My spiffy new computer isn't all hooked up yet, so there isn't time for me to back up and play with the McNuggets this evening. I don't know exactly how I feel about them in relation to relational thinking, but I'm not sure it matters. My kids insist that I can conceptually link anything to anything else - we had an impolite word to cover that skill when I was younger. Just off the wall, I see fast food as a part of our lifeworld that goes with living in a fast track, which kind of translates for me to living in a lifeworld characterized by late capitalism. So I see McNuggets as an icon for the loss of discretionary time. I would have said discretionary time for those transcendental thoughts that Habermas suggests must be transmitted anew "to every generation," as Tom quoted from Jurgen Habermas: POSTMETAPHYSICAL THINKING, MIT Press edition, 1993:But just then my trusty little computer spit out a message from Ralph Dumain:
- "If the remnant of the intersubjectively shared self-understanding that makes human(e) intercourse with one another possible is not to disintegrate, this potential must be mastered anew by every generation. Each must be able to recognize him- or herself in all that wears a human face. To keep this sense of humanity alive and to clarify it.. is certainly a task from which philosophers should not feel themselves wholly excused.."
Wow! It's kind of hard to sit through dinner with you guys. Well, nevermind. Ralph, I guess you can just fuss at me. I'm probably irrational, and I'm sure I'm volkisch, but I'm glad Habermas said that we need to recognize each others' human faces. I'm gonna stand firm with my position, at least for a while. That's because I learned from Freud, via Jonathan Lear, that we aren't always rational. Sometimes we just react, out of emotion or whatever, and then we go back to invent a nice rational explanation for what we did. My main quarrel with Habermas has always been that he sure lives in a lifeworld enormously different from mine, if most of the people in his are acting rationally.
- "This is vile beyond belief, and willfully ignorant. It is impossible to believe Habermas to sink to this level. It is a classic case of the irrationalism that bourgeois rationalism breeds, a cowardly retreat from the Enlightenment into the worst sort of volkisch thinking."
Regards to all,
Nah! That's not really sweet and sour me,
love and peace to all, jeanne
At 09:24 PM 4/25/2002 -0400, you wrote:
Why do you both seem to be assuming that my comment was antagonistic toward homosexuality?
--Tom
Jeanne Curran wrote:
Hey, Ken, can I put that up for my kids? I want them to learn to play with theory. Mead's theory of the importance of play fits right into all this. I certainly appreciated the time-out for a little laughter.
And the whole McNugget piece will be fun for my kids, now that I can conceptually link it. jjeanne
At 02:02 PM 4/25/2002 -0700, you wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas McDonald <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > 2. Entirely gratuitous gay-bashing.
>
> My comment was meant to be a humorous insight into the metaphor of
> 'sword-fighting' for philosophical argument. It seems paranoid to read
> gay 'bashing' into that.
What's so funny about being queer?
ken
ps. wow, I'm starting to see the relation between Habermas and McNuggets -
which has inadvertently spilled over into a gender analysis.
1. men go for hot mustard
2. women go for sweet and sour
3. the hot mustard for men is a manifestation of their aggressive tendencies
(hot mustard, hot head)
4. hot mustard is a metaphor
5. since there is only one dipping container, the fight over the last bit of
sause is very much like a duel
6. men who eat nuggests are therefore latent homosexuals (although this
might simply be a secondary expression of primary bi-sexuality)
7. women who like sweet and sour are paranoid because their personality
structure is split between taking on the performative roles of sweet and
sour
8. the masculine attachment to nuggets is a symptom of functionalist reason
because men would rather eat than communicate, thereby associating drive
with ego functions, marking a regression of the ego
9. the feminine attachment to nuggets is a symptom of masculine desire,
identifying with the split between the phallic nugget and the lack
10. we can thus conclude that nuggets are congealed commodity forms of a
communicative non-relationship, and are therefore symbols of capitalist
excess and communicative bottlenecks
11. as symbols of excess, they take on a medium of exchange, replacing words
with non-nutritional value
12. non-nutritional value is reified labour
13. reified labour results from the petrification of communication
structures stemming from binary gender positions coupled with the repression
of social nature, which coincides with the division between public and
private life
14. thus, going to McDonald's is an atrificial means of seeking consolation
from the harsh antagonisms of contemporary life and the gradual erosion of
the lifeworld throught the ongoing colonization of communicative public
spheres by corporate hegemony and capital exchange
15. this process favours masculine dominance since the expression of
masculine violence is socially tolerated within the sphere of public
competition and private subordination resulting in systematic distortions to
communicative relations, particularly between women and men but also between
men and other men
16. as usually, relations between women have been left out of the analysis,
but I suppose this discussion isn't finished yet
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