FS & Praxis

[matthew piscioneri]

To pick up aspects of Jim's and Neil's posts:

Isn't PART of the worry that the existential-assuring mechanism of 
consumerism and security apparati is not omnipotent but incompetent?

I treat social order as an emergent property of species life. So the issue 
becomes: what type of social order? This is pretty much JH's position IMO. 
Collective ideals integrate social order (Durkheim) so what type of 
collective ideal is preferable?

Bourgeois liberal democracy isn't perfect but it isn't necessarily rancid 
either. Again JH, enlightenment is always "work-in-progress". This is where 
C.T is intended to intervene. Maybe C.T undertakes the ongoing 
refinement/critique of the implementation of the integrating collective 
ideal.

Where does this leave radical "praxis"? I think JH is fuzzy on this one by a 
matter of degrees. If radical praxis is severe civil disobedience 
(terrorism) then this is a reversion to instrumental reason & strategic 
action. If radical praxis is the embodiment of communicative power (_BFN_) 
then the institutional framework of lib. democratic systems are
set up to convert this communicative power into legislation etc (_BFN_ 
again). It is a quasi-hegelian analysis which ends up with freedom and the 
state as reconciled.

Like all social systems-type models JH's approach leans towards conservatism 
(maintenance of the status quo) and is overly rosy and harmonious. After all 
it is just a theoretical model with both descriptive and normative 
objectives.

My interest remains the dynamic of empowerment and tutelage. And I haven't 
heard all that much from pro-praxis subscribers on this issue. Neil rightly 
calls for more empirico-historical discussion. I would argue that H. & A.'s 
historically grounded dialectic of enlightenment thesis shapes the entire 
frame work of the discourse over radical praxis.

It's an open question to the list: doesn't radical emancipatory praxis 
inevitably contribute to either the instituition of another oppressive mode 
of social order or assist in the refinement the existing order? I think it 
does and i think it is the basis of pragmatic engagement with the 
critical/emancipatory project. Otherwise, we are just blowing bubbles to 
impress ourself and our comrades :-).

To go further, people who continue to harbour dreams of macro-revolution 
aren't putting "in". Then become part of the problem. The best thing a list 
like this can achieve IMO in practical terms (other than the critical 
resource of data exchange, examination of ideas)is to try and nut out what 
are the reasonable expectations for praxis action. Try to make feasible the 
expectations held out for C.T's intervention.

>...isn't marcuse confirmed as
>never yet by this latest masterpiece of  "lib western democracy," 
>fictitious
>war, on fictitious grounds, for fictitious freedom, by a fictitious prez
>with a real military power, propaganda apparatus and intelligence system so
>vast and irresistable as gives new meaning to the word, totalitarianism.

MattP.

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