lbo-talk-digest V1 #4736

Kelley kwalker2 at gte.net
Mon Aug 13 17:01:58 PDT 2001


At 04:43 PM 8/13/01 -0700, Miles Jackson wrote:
>On Mon, 13 Aug 2001, Kenneth MacKendrick wrote:
>
> > You can't make this judgement (about whether or not autonomy, for
> instance, is universal or conventional) until you've already entered into
> a discourse with 'the other' - which can only take place under conditions
> of autonomy and solidarity and reasoning...
>
>This is simply empirically incorrect. People make judgments everyday
>without these conditions. Autonomy, solidarity, and reasoning as you
>define it are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for
>human judgment. Look around.

no, ken means it more abstractly. preJUDICE v. judgment. preJUDGING, get it?


> > Which is another way of saying: moral judgements require universal
> > participation. The only 'society' that could at all be deemed 'morally
> > inferior' is one that is actively trying to destroy communicative
> relations of 'the other' (because this amounts to a self-defeating and
> closed logic).
>
>So if a society does not meet your standards of communicative relations,
>it is in fact inferior. In what sense is this *not* blatant
>ethnocentrism?

uh, well, what he's saying is that cultural violence is nice.

i mean, you end up having to do a richard rorty here and somehow i don't think you have that in ya miles! :)


> > Habermas isn't claiming that universality exists in the middle of us,
> > he's arguing that we possess the capacity to create it. There is a
> > sense, in this, that Habermas is being eurocentric, but in order to
> > disagree, you have to acknowledge the importance of reasoning giving,
> > which makes him correct.
> >
>
>So no matter what anyone says or does--Habermas is correct. Isn't this
>a bit facile? I'm going to develop a theory that people speak because
>a little angel whispers the words in their ears. Look, every time
>people speak, I've got more evidence for the existence of these
>invisible angels. Next time Ken posts--see, I'm right! The angels
>exist!

an invisible angel can't be observed. your act of performatively contradicting your objections, however, is observed.


>Miles



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