[FRA:] Marcuse question

[matthew piscioneri]

Ralph,

>If one wishes to debate competing metaphysical categories--'modernism' vs. 
>'postmodernism'--one can certainly blow a lot of hot air doing so, but such 
>wasted breath is a barometer of how badly the social order has declined.

Well, except, there are those who are just coming to terms with the seismic 
shift that has occurred over the last 30 odd years in the prevailing social 
consciousness. It has taken me more than several years to come to terms with 
the transition of Being we have witnessed in our lifetimes. It's not 
unmomentous.

>Your own work, BTW, seems to be predicated on a tug of war between Habermas 
>and DIALECTIC OF ENLIGHTENMENT.

Yes, it *was*. And (quietly) on that point I wish I'd read as much Marcuse 
as i did H & A because i would have seen how much of Habermas's _TCA_ was a 
direct response -- however cleverly disguised -- to Marcuse's ODM and Eros. 
I missed it at the time.

>I don't believe in either of these contestants.  Either critical theory 
>contains ideas that can be used or it's the perpetuation of another 
>academic specialty.  Not that specialized academic studies can't be 
>used--it's a question of how one exploits the information.

I guess for different participants on this list, CT means different things. 
I've certainly been enjoying the academic specialty of the discussion into 
the history and historiography of the F.S. Reading Marcuse's essay reminded 
me just how much these people *felt* what they were doing -- that it wasn't 
just some abstract rumination on, or aesthetic repositioning of, the history 
of ideas.

Of course, if you were a *real* Hegelian Idealist, then the critical 
organization of Ideas would be
critical practice par excellence. This is one point I thought Marcuse in his 
essay made provocatively against Hegel and for Marx, as it were - with the 
Revolution of 1789, the revolutionary dimension of Spirit was historically 
materialized and has remained so for the best part of 200 years. Maybe the 
virtual reality of PoMo indicates the inevitable dialectical *correction* to 
the historical-social materialization of Spirit?

mattp