FS & Praxis

[matthew piscioneri]

Filipe,

I can offer a little information of the following question you raise and 
point you in the right direction for a fuller answer:

>The question I
>made was about the strenght of FS in terms of given us support for this
>"more elaborated dynamics" on present times.

The whole praxis issue is of course central to understanding what happened 
to the FS school in the 1960s and early 1970s especially. Now i don't 
pretend to be even a moderate historian of the FS. I have read sections of 
Wiggerhaus's history of the school, very closely followed the first 
generation/second generation transition and in particular done a fair bit of 
reading on the relationship between Adorno & Horkheimer & Marcuse and then 
Habermas and what was happening in Germany in the 1960s and 70s (student 
protest/counter-culture/radical politicisation Red Army/Baader-Meinhof.

In fact it would be also fair to say that this relationship more or less 
shapes the direction my thesis on Habermas stakes. Of course my "take" on 
this issue is influenced by my emphasis on Habermas's project.

All this by way of saying to you Filipe (and in VERY simple terms) H.&.A 
were by and large hostile to the radical praxis actions of the students and 
other groups ("mindless actionism"), Marcuse far more sympathetic, and 
Habermas late-1960s "left-fascism" type of stuff (although as Matustik tells 
in his excellent biography of JH there has been a gradual rapproachment 
between JH and elements of the radical left.

Not very encouraging really for FS support of direct praxis action. Afterall 
given Adorno's _Negative Dialectics_ prescriptive critical theoretical 
undertakings let alone direct political ACTION doesn't get support.

So Filipe it depends on how you want the FS school to be understood. Is 
there a third and fourth generation? On Doug Kellner's site there is a body 
of "new" FS writing. Is Doug still there? I have read Doug's C.T but not 
focused on the praxis issue in Doug's version of C.T.

if your focus is on the FS of the 1960s (H.,A.,M., JH) there is a fairly 
accessible discussion of this in the literature. I would be interested in 
hearing from more Marcuse-oriented readers on the list where Marcuse stood 
on the issue of praxis.

Thanks

MattP

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