At 12:28 16/06/99 +1000, Rob wrote:
>G'day Chris,
>
>I'll be marking exams for the next week, so all I can do to assuage your
>curiosity is pass on this response I fired in to the Habermas list when the
>Rippert article surfaced.
The end of Habermas's article is at
www.ZEIT.de/archiv/1999/18/199918.krieg_.html
in case anyone is more confident with their German. I think I agree with
this last paragraph
Eine Sache ist es, wenn die USA in den Spuren einer wie
auch immer bemerkenswerten politischen Tradition die
menschenrechtlich instrumentierte Rolle des hegemonialen
Ordnungsgaranten spielen. Eine andere Sache ist es,
wenn wir den prekären Übergang von der klassischen
Machtpolitik zu einem weltbürgerlichen Zustand über die
Gräben eines aktuellen, auch mit Waffen ausgetragenen
Konflikts hinweg als gemeinsam zu bewältigenden
Lernprozeß verstehen. Die weiter ausgreifende Perspektive
mahnt auch zu größerer Vorsicht. Die Selbstermächtigung
der Nato darf nicht zum Regelfall werden.
Now Rob's comments:
>>>I think the question of how to "use" Habermas's theory for political
>>>purposes is itself highly questionable in light of Habermas's longstanding
>>>insistence that substantive political positions cannot be derived from
>>>philosophically justified procedures.
>>And I mostly agree. Rippert's shot is a cheap one, but not wholly empty.
>>Habermas is deploying status/authority here.
<>
>>Me: Rippert goes to my main problem here. Habermas spends no time on what
>>actually happened. To disbelieve NATO 'facts' and their 'statement of
>>intent' is to be bracketed out of this argument altogether. Where's the
>>'dialogue free from domination' here?
Perhaps it is the liberal resolution of Kosovar autonomy inside Serbia!
>>Me: I can't pass comment, because Rippert says it so well! Nineteen of the
>>world's richest and most powerful countries attack a small country -
>>assuming a right found neither in law nor conscience, a right that makes
>>might right everywhere.
Not for the redivision of imperialist plunder but to assert a prototype
system of global justice, on a small country whose politics are clearly to
crush, if necessary through terror, minority nationalities that resist.
>>Rippert paraphrases Habermas: "For the first time, the German government is
>>taking human rights
>>seriously. "Direct membership in an association of world citizens would even
>>protect national subjects
>>against the arbitrary actions of their own government."
True?
>>It represents "a
>>step
>>on the path from the classical international law of nations towards the
>>>cosmopolitan law of a world civil "society".
Not true?
Chris Burford
London
>>Where's the respect for the 'lifeworld' category in that?
Perhaps he sees it as integral theme for the sort of global civil society
that could emerge.
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