>>> kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca 08/15/01 10:30AM >>>
>Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 11:51:51 -0400
>From: "Charles Brown" <CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us>
>Subject: Argument succeeds arguendo /lbo-talk-digest V1 #4737
>
>CB: OK, for the sake of argument, lets accept the convincing success of
>your argument, that is you have succeeded ( arguendo) in persuading me by
>argument that social forms are reproduced communicatively.
>
>How does that truth help us to overthrow capitalism and win socialism ?
"The truth will set you free."
In other words, I have no idea. Habermas's reconstruction of social evolution is a theory. It is Habermas's hope, and he's very explicit that all this is is a hope, that theoretical can guide our practice, inform our everyday lives in a way that avoids sloppy arguments, deadends and bottlenecks. I posted this quote before: "There can be no theory which at the outset can assure a world-historical mission in return for potential sacrifices." - JH.
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CB: "that theoretical ___?? can guide..." His theory ?
In other words, he is not promising us a rose garden ?
Ok but what recommends his theory over the theory I already have ? I've got a pretty big theory already, one which has generated a lot of practice. Marxism and Frederick Douglassism is a theory for guiding practice. You know the whole rigamarole. Why would I drop Douglassism/Marxism and take up Habermas' theory ? ( I realize you may have addressed this in the long thread)
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>Also, why did Habermas support NATO in the war on Yugoslavia ?
I don't know. Bombs don't seem all that communicative to me. But maybe my reading of everything he's written up until 1996 has been systematically distorted.
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CB: Yea, I was thinking that bombs are communicative action , but they communicate the wrong messages.