Jürgen Habermas is 80 today. He is one of the most influential contemporary thinkers in the areas of philosophy, sociology and cultural science: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habermas,_Jürgen
One of his most interesting works is "The Theory of Communicative Action." I find his analysis of the development of contemporary society interesting, particularly his analysis of the way modern society can be seen as an unequal dialectic between private, subjective "lifeworlds" and an ever more powerful "system." His thinking in this area is useful because it offers an explanation for some trends we observe in contemporary society, for example, our suspicions that we are being ever more disenfranchised, although, formally, we live in societies in which participation, representation and equality are established. Habermas sees the "system" as taking overweening power and thus becoming a source of alienation in the areas of the welfare state, corporate capitalism and the culture of mass consumption. The mass media plays a major role in this process. Political parties are also part of this "system." The following passage is lifted from Wikipedia (the quotations are from TCA): "In the end, systemic mechanisms suppress forms of social integration even in those areas where a consensus dependent co-ordination of action cannot be replaced, that is, where the symbolic reproduction of the lifeworld is at stake. In these areas, the mediatization of the lifeworld assumes the form of colonisation". Habermas argues that Horkheimer and Adorno, like Weber before them, confused system rationality with action rationality. This prevented them dissecting the effects of the intrusion of steering media into a differentiated lifeworld and the rationalisation of action orientations that follows. They could then only identify spontaneous communicative actions within areas of apparently 'non-rational' action, art and love on the one hand or the charisma of the leader on the other, as having any value. According to Habermas, lifeworlds become colonised by steering media when four things happen: 1. Traditional forms of life are dismantled. 2. Social roles are sufficiently differentiated. 3. There are adequate rewards of leisure and money for the alienated labour. 4. Hopes and dreams become individuated by state canalization of welfare and culture. These processses are institutionalised by developing global systems of jurisprudence. He here indicates the limits of an entirely juridified concept of legitimation and practically calls for more anarchistic 'will formation' by autonomous networks and groups. "Counterinstitutions are intended to dedifferentiate some parts of the formally organised domains of action, remove them from the clutches of the steering media, and return these 'liberated areas' to the action co-ordinating medium of reaching understanding". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Communicative_Action I wonder how much the Internet (I'm thinking here of the burgeoning social networks like Facebook, as well as - in a very modest way - our group here and others like them, but also Wikipedia, search engines, etc.) are such "counterinstitutions." Certainly the nervous actions of the regimes in China and Iran in recent times would seem to reinforce such views. Francis --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
