Mirror Sites:
CSUDH - Habermas - UWP - Archives
Practice Module on This File

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Soka University Japan - Transcend Art and Peace
Created: October 5, 2002
Latest Update: October 25, 2002
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

On Political Positioning

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, October 2002.
"Fair use" encouraged.

On Tursday, October 10, 2002, Webb at Tulane University wrote:

I read your site http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/know05.htm about liberalism, radicalism, and conservativism. It was informative, and provided me with a different perspective than I have been hearing in my location. I suspect your point may have been to focus more on the social justice issue, so my questions may be out of place; I had a few questions about your take on the broader issues of difference between liberalism, conservativism, and radicalism.

If you read any of the pundits on either the conservative side or the liberal side, they tend to construct "straw men" of each other, attributing to each other definitions and positions that are not accurate. Does this fit into the social justice issue you address? Do you see this effect as an end of its own (power, and victory over the other side), or as means to the larger social justice issues?

I am also curious about your take on the different sides' views of personal responsibility. Is it possible/probable that the social justice differences arise from the personal-responsibility differences?

I noted your example of the arguments made on TV about better schools, safer schools, protecting the children, and improving the teaching pool. I too find that most people agree if you "chunk up" high enough. Do you believe such agreement exists in the higher levels of politics, such as congress and the white-house, or do they tend more to lapse into fights over labels? If the latter, what do you invision as a possible solution?

Thanks for your time.

On Saturday, October 12, 2002, jeanne replied:

Good questions. I'll do my best to answer them. And, you're right, my perspective does and will represent my own perspective of social justice. No way to avoid that.

First source I thought of when I read your questions was Albert O. Hirschman, The Rhetoric of Reaction. Wow, was I grateful when I turned back to know05.htm to see that I had sited Hirschman. I'm going to answer your questions now off the top of my head, because it's the eighth week of the semester back here, and my kids will have fits if I don't get their comments up, and I don't blame them. Perhaps we could engage in further discussions when I catch up - like in December? Or perhaps our students will join in and share with you their perceptions on these issues.

1. You mention that our discussion "provided me with a different perspective." That's a really important point. Most of us who teach have our own perspectives, and sometimes we accept that perspective as the "correct" one. Because I'm a critical theorist, I should never allow myself such privilege. As Hirschman reminds us, we all have a tendency to fall back on rhetoric when all else fails. At the merest sign of opposition we lose faith in both trust in the Other and in the Rational. And then we fall into shouting rhetoric at each other. Your reaction to the difference in perspective fascinates me. It is what we would call "illocutionary," that is, heard in good faith in the interest of understanding, though perhaps not agreeing with, the Other perspective.

   If you have the time, we would like to hear the perspective with which you are more familiar, in the interest of illocutionary discussion.

2. Your description of pundits identified with the different political positions is that "they tend to construct 'straw men' of each other, attributing to each other definitions and positions that are not accurate. Does this fit into the social justice issue you address? Do you see this effect as an end of its own (power, and victory over the other side), or as means to the larger social justice issues?"

   • The "straw men" I see as straight out of Hirschman's rhetoric. I think I'd use the Princile of the Wedge, at. p. 83:

     "perhaps better known today as the 'thin edge of the wedge' ('thin end of the wedge' in British usage) and is implicit in several related metaphors: a proposed move is just 'a foot in the door,' or 'the tip of the iceberg,' or 'the camel's nose under the tent.' The 'slippery slope' is a related image, widely used and abused. The wealth of metaphors testifies to the popularity of arguing against an actiion on the ground that, even though unobjectionable in itself, it will have unhappy consequences."
     The quote is not off the top of my head. I had Hirschfeld sitting here. jeanne

     I think the creation of "straw men" is one way of saying it's just the tip of the icebery; you don't even want to go there. We have a habit in this society of major denial whenever deeply embedded painful issues come up. Accuracy has no part in this process. The process is about fear, the fear that if we cease denial and discover each other as humans, in very many ways alike, our whole belief system based on privileged knowledge will collapse. That's a pretty scary thought for many of us who have been through the schools of the last five decades or so in which "training" carried more significance than "critical thinking." Wasn't it Churchill who said the greatest thing we have to fear is fear itself?

     If we were to look at individual cases, there may be many reasons for the inaccuracies, but I think the main point here was well made by Hirschman. I can be very very positive I'm right, and very very hostile to you if you think me wrong, when I am fighting off your attempt to end my denial. This is not a rational action, this refusal to face denial. And so you must not be too troubled by the lack of reason and accuracy in the arguments. The arguments are about the survival of my world of intellectual privilege, not about our rhetoric, whatever that may be.

   • "Does this fit into the social justice issue you address?"

     You bet, it does. How can we have social justice when I am principally occupied with protecting my intellectual privilege? Physics and math had gone along merrily for years, with many who understood their fundamental principles until Enstein announced e=mc2. It took quite a while for Einstein's theory of relativity to be accepted. And in part that was because of the intellectual privilege of those who "knew" the laws of fundamental physics and who "knew" that Einstein could not be right.

     Further, the existence of this intellectual privilege tends to be bestowed upon newcomers by others who have already earned it. This privilege is highly prized. We become competitive over the privilege, over gaining it, and over protecting it from any hint of a need to reinterpret it in light of new evidence. Those who do not yet belong to the circle of intellectual privilege who suggest that it is time to reinterpret that which we thought we "knew" discover that they are discredited by those who already "know." This is exclusion of dissent. We cannot have social justice in a society that condones the exclusion of dissent and that consequently refuses to grant a good faith hearing to all validity claims. Now that would come from Habermas' claim to the need for legitimacy and public discourse to address matters of governance.

     Maria Pia Lara's work on the need for illocutionary discussion to provide the skills requisite to the public discourse Habermas envisages suggest that even beyond permitting a good faith hearing to validity claims, we must bring our own skills to understand as completely as we can the logic and feelings that have led to these validity claims and to aid in that expression when those who would do so are inadequately trained in persuasiveness, of lack the tools of persuasiveness.

   • Do you see this effect as an end of its own (power, and victory over the other side), or as means to the larger social justice issues?

     If I understand correctly what you are asking, you want to know whether I think that the construction of "straw men," with depictions not actually restrained to accuracy, goes with the local win. That is if "my straw man" can beat up "your straw man," as in a vote, then I win, and that's at least a big piece of the game. And you're asking me if that local or specific win matters, or is just a means to larger social justice issues. In other words, am I more interested in the bigger game? For those of you who are wondering, that's a fairly complex question, at least for me.

     I think my answer to this question is that I really don't see a major difference between quantitative and qualitative sociology, between macrosociology and microsociology. Now, I know that's heretical, but hear me in good faith. Those who count and shape the world into hypotheses they can test, are focussed on one part of the elephant, say the trunk. Those who spend years with a street corner gang, describing all the human bits of interaction, are focussed on another part of the elephant, say the tusks. Just as an elephant isn't an elephant without a trunk, so he wouldn't be an elephant without his tusks. Perspectives are interdependent.

     Macrosociology looks at the broad overview of the system as a whole. Usually it counts and submits its numbers to mathematical manipulation. Microsociology looks more carefully at the interpersonal interactions. But often, it counts, too. Particularly if it wants to receive the imprimatur of those who count in the field. There are many of us, some included in the academy, some excluded, some hanging on for dear life, who these extremes, much as we see the extremes of political persuasion, as interdependent.

     As Maria Pia Lara puts it so beautifully, in the process of an illocutionary discussion, as we each try in good faith to hear the Other and to understand the reasoning and feelings of the Other, we each come a little closer to recognizing our similarities and a little more receptive to understanding our differences. The importance of stories, the stories of each of us, and we each have many, is that they guide us to creatively imagine a world different from the one of our own lifeworld. Through the imaginary, we come just a little closer to the possibility.

     So, yes, I think the local games are important, but not so important to win through hurling rhetoric at one another. I think they are important as a first and requisite step to learning to knock it off with the hurling of rhetoric, and to listen in a little healing silence to the Other. To try to figure out who the Other is. To try to hear what she's saying. And if her "straw man" seems real to her at the moment, then to accept that to her it is real (W.I Thomas, "If men believe facts to be real, they are real in their consequences.") In the process of using that part of the human communicative apparatus I have for so long taken for granted, I might just discover that the Other is not unlike Me. Now how could that be?

     And in that moment of remembering all the traces of our communication with those who are "like us" maybe She and I will come a little closer, a little more humanly close, to the kind of communication we have learned in peaceful scenes with solidarity of community. I think that's what doctors are hoping for with Christopher Reeve's spine. That with extensive external help in moving the spine, the memory of how it used to function will return, and will be copied by other undamaged components of the brain. They are hoping. So am I. Especially, that the wins we envision sometimes are far less grand than the results our hope brings about. We know how to care. We know how to respect. We know how to behave and treat others with dignity. Perhaps with more illocutionary discussions we could bring back those memories, and our brains could relearn some of our interpersonal interactions.

     But the interpersonal relations and the illocutionary discourse that bring us to a point of genuine and authentic discussion are just the start. In the macrosociological and political domains there are real issues not easily solved for any nation. Questions of homeland, of genocide, of exploitation, dominance, and control. Each one teach one can take us only so far. At some point we need to translate that into a system of legitimate representation for all in which all validity claims are given a good faith hearing, and where decisions are continually focused on causing minimal harm to living creatures and to the earth. Now we must speak of nation-states, of global economy, of equality of access to the simple essentials of life like land, air, water. All those are in jeopardy today. So, of course, it is the big game which counts. It will do us little good to live peacefully and caringly in our local tribe, if other nation-states destroy the world.

     But you see, I see the two as interdependent. Until we learn to reat each other with respect and dignity, how are we to collectively treat our earth with respect and dignity? We need the illocutionary discourse and skills to tackle the broader nation-state and ecological problems that bind us together, respect, dignity, or no.

   • I am also curious about your take on the different sides' views of personal responsibility. Is it possible/probable that the social justice differences arise from the personal-responsibility differences?

     This is a tough question, because I can't be sure that I've properly interpreted "personal responsibility." Different philosophical schools have different views on this, but I think you are referring to a political stance. Given that assumption, I think I can answer your question.

     My take on the traditional political positions, such as radical left, liberal, moderate, conservative, "religious right" conservative, libertarian, is that the term "personal responsibility" depends on one's interpretiation of entitlement, and that usually depends on an interpretation of the Constitution and the rights attendant thereto. You'll notice that I've added a fe position to the traditional left - middle - right. That's because I see "rights" and "responsibilities" issues as far more complex than they were when I was young. I'm not a political scientist. I have no special knowledge of any of these positions other than my general reading in an attempt to help my students understand the critical choices with which they will be faced in their lifeworld. So how about I just give you in my own off the top of my head definitions what I think, since it seems to be what I think that you asked for?

     • radical left - My take on radical left is one who believes that to maintain silence before the social injustices apparent through a willingness to talk to and listen to different perspectives cannot maintain such silence without being complicit. That doesn't mean that I think you have to speak out in every cause, or agree as to whether many different actions involve social injustice. It means that you're not entitled as a radical left member of this society to remain silent when the facts are relatively apparent, and when the only way you can deny them is by denial and/or a refusal to hear them.

       Such things as enforcing rules that you know harm certain groups of people, such as night students at a university where half the students come at night and where almost all offices close at 5 p.m. involves complicity. When charged with such injustice, I cannot claim that I do not know. I know. As do all administrators and all faculty. We are therefor complicit in granting inferior status, dignity, and respect to night students, who afford about half our tuition.

       It is traditional to say that I have not harmed anyone. Those are the rules. No. We are the rules. The rules are not living. They do not have a system of biofeedback through which they can correct and reproduce themselves. We do. It is we who do the harm. And in particular, it is we who remain silent, though we have the voice to speak.

       But I have a further take on personal responsibility. Most of us live in a fast track lifeworld in which at times I find my young students as tired as I am myself. None of us can take on the whole world, never mind how we fight denial. There are physical and emotional limitations, and there are everyday lives to be fully and joyfully. How does the left radical cope with that? For me, Maria Pia Lara's advise of becoming aware. Of being willing to listen to the stories. Of being willing to hear and stand in support of those who are trying to speak out is often all I can manage. There are times when I can speak out and challenge. There are other times when adding a hug or a warm measure of support is all I can do. But I can always refuse to go back into denial, to assume that somehow I am right and "they" are wrong and thus not deserving of my respect.

       I often think of the Yanomami who considered it perfectly reasonable to lie in their hammocks and sing and relax once they had gathered enough food for the day. Yes, how I would sometimes love to just lie in a hammock and sing, off key without others to help, but alone if I must, in a hymn to life. The anthropolgists who abhorred the Yanomami unwillingness to gather food for many days ahead, when food had always been there, failed to grasp whole spheres of both power and meaning.

     • liberal - My take on liberal is one who sees the problems and the injustices, but who is adamant that we must work within the system. There is an unstated assumption here that the system itself, the infrastructure, is not itself at fault. That's a huge unstated assumption that can rarely be justified. For example, to complain that children in inner city schools are not motivated to learn fails to take into account the effects of nutrition, parental responsibilities and preparation and possibility for meeting those responsibilities, the health care afforded the entire family and the ease of access to that health care. Then we might talk about the funding of the inner city school, access to equipment, books, teachers, etc. To compare the achievement of students at elite public schools with those of the inner city without adjusting for these minimal infrastructural components is to be dishonest and unethical.

       So the best argument in favor of the liberal, in my take, is that

---

---