myth and reason

[MSalter1@aol.com]

In a message dated 08/07/97 05:24:39 GMT, Ken writes:

<< What I wonder about all this is whether all criticism is implicitly a form
of 
 mysticism - since it depends upon the individual subjective experience which
then 
 makes sweeping universal claims - which are safeguarded by saying other 
 perspectives are alientated, reified, or deceived.  The idea of science as
religion, 
 society as implicitly religious, the self as spiritual, humanity as sacred
etc. all 
 point in this direction. >>

I think the tendency to subsume all forms of critique to one model of
dogmatic external critique that over-generalises from its own prejudices, is
itself dangerous. Since the preface to Hegel's philosophy of law, dialectical
thought has differentiated external/abstractly utopian/dogmatic/totalising
critique (that fails immanently owing to its self-exclusion from criticism),
from "immanent critique" by which a perspective is entered into and thought
through up to its own limits, i.e., to the point where the discrepancies
between its ideological claims and what its actual practices achieve becomes
clear. A parellal danger lies in the failure to differentiate
critical/reflexive modes of reason concerned to justify the ends of social
life, from instrumental kinds that take the ends as given and concern
themselves with the most efficient means to achieving the.

Michael. S