SOME THOUGHTS ON HABERMAS

I believe that an inquiry into issues of social justice can benefit greatly from critical theory. Habermas has believed that human beings are unnecessarily oppressed by implicit cultural ideologies. Therefore when a research uses critical theory as its framework its goal will necessarily become one of making the implicit belief systems explicit. In other words the role of this type of inquiry is to free individuals by formulating theories that can be practiced towards social change. So, in that sense the research that is anchored in critical theory should be able to offer alternative ways of knowing, reflection, and finally, social action. 

 Having said all of this, I firmly believe that critical theory-and Habermas as its gate keeper-is not beyond reproach. The language of critical theory is the “modern” language and Habermas does not believe that we live in a “postmodern condition.” I disagree, of course. Habermas steadfastly believes that we (exponents of inquiry) are still working on issues and ideas that were presented to us by Enlightenment. To be sure, there is truth to that, as the language of the postmodernist scholars is the same as the exponents of Frankfurt school of thought-we all use modernist thinking to either critique modern thinking or propagate it. Habermas is more of a dialectical thinker than a dialogical one, although to his credit, in the past few years he is reevaluating his methodology. For example, his trip to Iran back in 2002 to give lectures on secularism and Enlightenment and engage in dialogue with Iranian thinkers shows signs of dialogical approach and an active interest in the Third World. This is in contrast to his previous views and history of Frankfurt school as a whole. In his seminal work, Culture and Imperialism, Edward Said (1994) criticizes Frankfurt school this way, Frankfurt school critical theory, despite its seminal insights into the relationships between domination, modern society, and the opportunities for redemption through art as critique, is stunningly silent on racist theory, anti-imperialist resistance, and oppositional practice in the empire. And lest that silence be interpreted as an oversight, we have today’s leading Frankfurt theorist, Jurgen Habermas, explaining in an interview (originally published in The New Left Review) that the silence is deliberate abstention: no, he says, we have nothing to say to “anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist struggles in the Third World,”even if, he adds, “I am aware of the fact that this is a eurocentrically limited view. (p. 278) 

However, judging from his recent actions (e.g., the conference in Tehran), one can surmise that Habermas is rethinking his old views and becoming more flexible, dare I say, considering some aspects of what Paulo Freire called “progressive postmodern thinking.”

The Frankfurt theorists at the Institute for Social Research, namely, Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse, Fromm, and Habermas relied heavily on the work of Hegel and Marx. These thinkers have tried to exhibit dialectically the contradictions imposed upon modern human beings by varieties of social organization that abuse formal rationality in order to deny power to classes of citizens. One look at the Bush II administration, and a creative inquiry that is anchored in critical theory can reveal what this administration is doing to oppress not only the citizens of the Third World, but also the citizens of the United States. Now, you might be thinking, that’s an easy one.

Let us look at the history of cinema with a lens borrowed from Frankfurt school. When in the 1920s Hollywood was shaping to become a powerful institution and played a central role in the “culture industry” (a term coined by Adorno) there was a class struggle happening. There was a struggle between the artists (laborers of movie making) and the owners of the studios, in short, a struggle over movies. This struggle over movies took place in the realm of leisure and amusements, and in a society where to speak of class conflict was a breach of good taste (still that way) it was always masked. Take Charlie Chaplin’s work for example. He was concerned about social justice and used slapstick comedy and melodrama to convey his message of class conflict via movies made within a system that was not interested in social justice.

As a creative inquirer-using critical theory as a framework-I perceive most of Hollywood  films as powerful and pervasive communicators of cultural myths that propagate and reinforce the socio-political system. For example most films of Steven Spielberg (one of the gatekeepers of the culture industry) support the dominant ideological values of a conservative America. So, as a critical theorist I shall hope that my theories can lead to practical action towards the elimination of such dominance.

Where does Habermas stand in this sphere of thinking? He too wants the citizens to escape from the dominance of the power structure. This is the same goal that Foucault and Derrida had, however, where Habermas differs from these French thinkers is his staunch belief in modernity and Enlightenment. Where Foucault and Derrida called for a radical approach to the ways of knowing and action towards social justice, Habermas calls for a continuation of Enlightenment.    

According to Richard Rorty, “Habermas has said that Marx, Kierkegaard and American pragmatism were the three productive responses to Hegel.” Rorty is a very reliable source, and has had dialogues with Habermas-and many other continental thinkers for that matter.

For Habermas, what takes the place of the urge to represent reality accurately is the urge to come to free agreement with our fellow human beings-to be full participating members of a free community of inquiry.

Habermas coined the term, “communicative rationality,” which is to say that as creative inquirers we have an obligation to be rational, and for Habermas that comes as a result of taking account of other people’s doubts and objections to our own beliefs. This is not unlike what William James believed about being “true,” that true is “what would be better for us to believe.”

He also has a viewpoint that is problematic for creative inquirers. Habermas thinks that inquiry is somehow bound to converge to a single point. Perhaps he is too entrenched in rationality.