On Mon, 13 Aug 2001, kelley wrote:
> For mine, and i'd very much appreciate crits here: Many political
> theorists call for the cultivation of practices which nurture citizens
> capable of autonomous democratic self-rule in which practices and
> authorities are understood as something we must actively, consciously agree
> to and participate in, rather than merely accept them as natural. in the
> name of democracy. It is claimed that a social order might possibly to
> transcend its own naturalized arbitrariness. Amy Gutmann calls this project
> 'conscious social reproduction' (CSR):
>
<snipperoo> Hey, I like democracy. I like critique. I even like rationality. All that makes me twitchy here is the idea of making grand pronouncements of what Must Be fundamental to any Good Society. I agree CSR is a neat idea in this social context, but is it something humans everywhere, at all times, will have to live up to in order to live in a worthwhile society? Who knows? Look at how things have changed over the past 20,000 years in human societies! Can we leave open the possibility that people might find new and better ways to live that do know include any of our serious and well meaning principles (e.g., CSR)?
Miles