Ethical foundations of the left

[Gordon Fitch]

> > > the subject has to choose reason before using it.

Kenneth MacKendrick:
> In the primordial Freudian sense, sure. We 'choose' consciousness rather 
> than remaining unconscious. Not much of choice if you ask me. But I can see 
> it in my minds eye...

Language is often used to obstruct or suppress consciousness.
It seems to be what enables people to not only construct
lies, but to believe in them and be put to sleep by them.
Or more accurately, be turned into zombies or sleepwalkers,
able to work in mighty enterprises like General Motors or
the Holocaust.

> ...

> >But if Habermas wants to reject this, he must attribute to
> >_ratio_ some sort of divine afflatus which keeps it from going
> >"bad" -- a god.
> 
> Nope. Habermas's doesn't want to see the world go to hell, but he 
> acknowledges that it can, and that would be the end of the world as we know 
> it. So, if that's god, I say it is a pretty pathetic god.

Exactly.  Habermas knows that the big, masterful god can get
knocked off on the basis of poor performance or aesthetics.
He's trying a middling god.  It's a rhetorical strategy.  One
needn't spend much time on it; big or small, gods are still
gods, and they're still hiding in the grammar.  Or in the
case of Habermas's rhetoric, I guess we could say they're
coyly peeking out.  Hi, there!

> ...