HABERMAS' IDEAL SPEECH SITUATION

[Ralph Dumain]

I've got to run in a minute, so I'll have to get back to this discussion
later this evening, after I've digested your latest post.  It is just so
odd that, given my age-old skepticism about Habermas and the value of what
I little I knew about his theory of communicative action, that I would bend
over backward to be so sympathetic to the little I know about it now, given
that I could have criticized it in the interesting ways you have outlined.
I've also had my doubts about Hegel's notions, but I am forced to take them
seriously also.  I must be moved by the struggle against irrationalism, in
spite of my skepticism of procedural thinking.

I also need to take another look at Gilroy.  I just looked up a couple of
page references to Habermas.  I once believed in this politics of
transfiguration, but I have become very cynical about it in the past few
years.  Now is not slavery of course, but I think this sort of analysis
glosses over the deeply entrenched authoritarianism _within_ the black
community.  Gilroy by now must have learned the hard way about the
hostility between Black Brits and Black Americans, and I hope he has been
disabused of whatever illusions he may have had, because if he has not,
he's going to pay very dearly for his naivete.

At 05:04 PM 10/27/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>Habermas's theory is "post-empirical" in a sense. It can't really be tested.


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