>In a typically Habermasian move, you reduce all use of language of
>reasoning--a late and rather atypical sort of behavior, rarely enagged in
>by most people who talk. They'd rather gossip, swear, make passes, insult
>each other, compliment each other, pass time, express opinions, boast,
>beg, insinuate, . . . . anything but reason.
I.e. they'd rather demonstrate their communicative competence than reflect on it... that's fine enough, I've always considered navel-gazing an essential part of the project of modernity...
> The value of reasoning, especially about abstract matters like ethical
> theory, is a specialized taste. Reasoning is good if you care to know
> that you justified in your beliefs, but few people care about that, and
> who can blame them?
People care, that's why they tell people what they believe. As for justifying their beliefs, there is little option. One *must* come up with justifications for why one believes the things they do or suffer from a massive cognitive disequilibrium (belief for the sake of belief, aside from being tautological, isn't vogue these days). The thing is, in general, we aren't asked why we believe something, we're just told that we're wrong / right. This cuts across the reasoning process, needlessly I might add (unless one is just looking for a fight, in which case one has already assumed what is not a fight and opted for the fight) (and unconscious motivations come into play here as well, I don't rule them out - this is a pragmatic reading of language, which is to be supplemented by a psychoanalytic critique).
The point Habermas makes, and there is no reason for me to hide my cards here, is that we presuppose that our opinions and thoughts can be justified... otherwise we just wouldn't hold them.
>When you want people to _move_, you gotta say something moving. Go to
>Jesse Jackson, not John Rawls, to get people motivated. Tell me, Kenneth,
>how come politicians, preachers, prophets, movement organizers,
>advertising executives, propaganda experts, psy-war specialists, none of
>the do their motivating by writing arguments or publishing in the Journal
>of Philosophy?
Because their actions are strategic, but this strategy is *based on* a prior preunderstanding of communicative competence. If a speaker is going to motivate people, they'll use the tricks, pull out the stops, put on a show - the aim is success, not agreement (i.e. the motivational speaker wants to be understood, but this isn't reaching an agreement). It is calculated, it is predetermined (for the most part) in advance, it is a one-way street - in effect, it isn't a conversation. It is, effectively, no different than watching a wrestling match on TV, it gets you pumped, but you can't call in and say, "hey, figure four now!" This is part of the medium of spectacle. However, in a journal, or the classroom, or in a forum governed by Robbers Rules, there is an opportunity for rebuttal (hopefully). But the rhetorical gesture is only possible if one already knows, in advance, what communicating is all about. In order to manipulate communicative actions, one must already know what they are. If you want to write a good speech, a real wizz dinger, you consult with other people about how it will affect your demographic, this is where communicative actions comes into play, a bunch of jokers will collaborate on a project, then implement their program.
>I don't think my view is desperately cynical. I think it's realistic, and
>it's naive and self-defeating to try to turn everything into a seminar.
>besides, it would be boring to trade in beautiful rhetoric and powerful
>artistic and literary evocations, narratives that move people, for dry
>argument. Not that dry argument has got its place. But you have a limited
>conception of humanity if you constrain us to mere argument,
On this point Habermas is weak, although there is much to be said. Rhetoric, utopian poetry, evocations, dreams, artistic imaginings - these inspire and create new experiences, they open us up to a world that we have not yet experienced (if they are good, that is). This not only opens us up to new ways of experiencing the world, but also into new ways of using language and communicating. Obviously there is no guarantee of this - it works both ways - a joke can launch someone into a depression as much as it can elevate ones day - but even in the most instrumental uses of language, there is the possibility of reflection and learning, it is language/symbolism after all. Our experiences don't happen in a vacuum, there is a sensuous base to communication, but it is a dialectical relation, language relates to our sensuousness and sensuousness relates to our language...
These kind of things should not be confused with instrumental actions, whereby the body is comprehended as an object and manipulated as such. In political economy, the communicative body is an object, to be manipulated; the military 'uses its soldiers up' - these is sheer calculating rationality... and it is monological (as opposed to dialogical).
I'm not trying to turn everything into a seminar, although if everything was a seminar the world might be a more rational place. It was Zizek who noted that his country was in flames not because he was talking about Hitchcock, but because not enough people were talking about Hitchcock. Joyless reformism aside, we have to *create* time and places to argue. We don't have many of them now, and the more things that get privatized, the less space there is for intersubjective relations to develop beyond "fuck you very much."
I'm making a case for argumentation, I'm not say the world should be a classroom. I'm just saying...
ken (there is a Lacanian in me that's laughting its ass off)