> >No room for argument about argument
>>("irrefutable...irrefutable...irrefutable...irrefutable...irrefutable"),
>>so I gather Habermas is for some God, & his theory of communicative
>>action, theology.
>>
>>:-0
>>
>>Yoshie
>
>Not really. Habermas probably would not agree to that.
Habermas's theory demands that ideally those who participate in discussion be prepared to be moved by "the force of the better argument" by taking a hypothetical attitude to competing claims in question, dislodging their selves from personal needs, social norms, and prior beliefs. Whether Habermas himself (let alone the LBO-talk Habermasians) can take such a hypothetical attitude toward his own theory of communicative action is debatable. Even in science -- the preeminent site of reason-giving with autonomy, freedom, equality, fairness, etc. under modernity, at least ideally -- "the force of the better argument" is likely to change the minds of scientists only on minor questions _within_ a given paradigm (or within the sphere of "normal science" as conservative "puzzle-solving"), & shifts _between_ different paradigms -- not to mention the revolutionary beginnings of modern science -- do not happen in a fashion idealized by the theory of communicative action. Cf. Thomas Kuhn, _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions_.
>and I am not sure that I agree with some here that "traditional"
>societies never have disagreements).
The claim is not that "traditional" societies never had disagreements. In pre-capitalist & pre-modern societies, however, personal dependence was universal, & autonomy was exceptional, if it existed at all. Therefore, though slave revolts took place in such societies as well, there could be no abolitionism (= a political movement to abolish slavery altogether) unlike in capitalist & modern societies, to take just one example. Modern & capitalist societies -- unlike societies under pre-capitalist modes of production -- open many aspects of social reproduction to practical attempts to criticize & reconstruct rationally & systematically, while at the same time creating & depoliticizing "the economic proper."
>By the way, I'm going to risk being very politically incorrect here.
>If it is a difference between the "traditional" Taliban or Christian
>"fungal menaces" (my term of affection for them) and "eurocentric
>rationality," I think I'll stick with rationality (although I really
>don't think it is the whole of life).
I agree that liberal democracy is preferable to theocracy, be it Islamic or Christian or whatever (though whether Iran before or after the Iranian Revolution is better for the poorer Iranians is debatable). However, the last time Afghanistan had a chance to enter into modernity, it was the governing elite of liberal democracy in the West who sided with forces of reaction against modernizing socialists. Generally speaking, it takes a military victory (over reactionary forces) to usher in modernity in a still largely feudal society: the English Civil War; the Glorious Revolution; the American Revolution; the French Revolution; the American Civil War; the Mexican Revolution; the Russian Revolution; etc. (Even what Gramsci called "passive revolutions" like the Meiji Restoration -- in which bourgeois forces make compromises with feudal ones, rather than the former decisively vanquishing the latter a la Jacobinism -- included military actions.) To repeat:
It's far more difficult to get liberal democracy going in Somalia than in Germany, to take just one comparative example. A Somalia needs a Machiavelli (= a bourgeois Machiavelli building the state & the home market, or better yet a socialist Machiavelli building a socialist developmental state perhaps a la the Cuban Revolution) before a Habermas can become in any way useful for it.
In short, you can't create a society in which discourse makes a political difference by using discourse alone; in fact, it likely takes what goes against the ideals of communicative action to create objective conditions under which such ideals can be brought closer to earthly realization. Means & ends do not coincide with each other.
Yoshie