>On Sat, 28 Jul 2001, Kelley wrote:
>
> > also, that said, he [JH] has argued that our communication is
> > systematically
> > distorted _because_ of domination, power, exploitation.
> >
>
>This is the strangest thing to me about Habermas' project. In fact,
>domination, power, and exploitation make possible various forms of
>communication in everyday life. Think about it: schools, mass media,
>the military, the factory floor, the church: each of these social
>contexts involves hierarchy and power relations. Nevertheless, people
>effectively communicate in these settings.
he doesn't say people don't.
>Moreover, the existence
>of hierarchially organized social arrangements, such as a mass media
>conglomerate, facilitate new strategies for communication (e.g.,
>AOL's chat system). To put it bluntly, I think JH has it completely
>backward: it is via domination and power that we are able to
>communicate with each other.
it's via domination and power that we coordinate all our labors to produce goods, as well. no, he's too much of a sociologist to think that way about it. he draws on garfinkle after all.
>If/when we succeed in overcoming
>capitalist domination, we will not be "closer" to some sort of
>ideal communicative situation; rather, we will be engaged in different
>language games as appropriate to that context as existing forms
>of communication are appropriate to the existing context.
he clarifies this in _moral consciousness and communicative action_. just as people have argued that labor won't necessarily be play, communication won't be perfect.
you really have to see what he's doing as reconstructing historical materialism. what marx does with labor, he's doing with communicaiton.
more anon,
kelley