Jurgen Habermas, Theorist of Lotions

As a disclaimer for the immature blog title in reaction to the Habermas biography, in reality I'm doing you all a favor because you'll be able to recall his name on the final exam. Just remember: Jergen's Have-A-Mess.

That being said, (and then put aside!), the brief biography of Dr. Habermas shows that he is someone whose life situation directly impacted what he chose to devote himself to. By that I mean that he may have never developed as a theorist on political issues had he not been confronted with the horrific contradictions of the Nazi party and the Holocaust. Many people were dealt the same hand of cards as he and chose to react in a different way, but I think that it's safe to say he most likely would have chosen a very different path had he grown up elsewhere.

Habermas takes the deconstructive approach to his ideas in that he goes back to what has already been discussed, then he deconstructs it - takes it apart - and puts it back together in another way that isn't completely divergent from the original. But it could be nearly unrecognizable, depending on where he's coming from. The most obvious example of this is Habermas' interest in the Enlightenment, using reason to determine rather than ideals. Reason, he thinks, should determine ideals. To quote the book, "The contradictions of a society constitute its ideologies - systems of irrational or distorted beliefs that maintain their legitimacy despite the fact that they cannot be validated if subjected to rational discourse" (235).

The rhetoric Habermas is interested in is a rhetoric of equality - where everyone who wishes to speak can be heard. He feels that "the citizen is guaranteed the right of access to discussion in the public sphere by virtue of the abstract right of humanness" (239). I wonder if Habermas' philosophy had much influence in the realm of international justice, being rooted in the idea that all people are equal and thus should be valued the same. The problem here is what his students and many of his other critics have pointed out in the past, that he is idealistic and talks - but does not necessarily cause action. The equality issue is one, indeed, that we've been talking about for a very long time, and it is still not fully realized. But, in his defense, if no one wants to talk then you can guarantee nothing will ever happen. That is addressed on page 242, when it says, "power itself is embedded in the process of coordinating action through speech." Thus Habermas acknowledges this; perhaps, though, he is not the one performing said coordinated action.

Finally, the section on discourse was particularly good; discourse is something different from discussion. In discourse, "nothing is taken for granted" (249). This is where real things are at stake, where every piece of evidence or argument must be backed up. This is where the choice of words, even the tone of voice, makes a difference. A discussion can be something people engage in when they just want to get something off their chests, not particularly urgent on arriving at a solution. Habermas' critical divergence, then, is claiming that there are levels of speaking, discourse of which is the highest, then levels of discourse until one arrives at a type of rhetorical nirvana. Idealistic for sure, but ideas must arrive from someplace.