It Could be Argued
Habermas said: due to the 20th century expansion
Of state bureaucracy
The “lifeworld”
In which we live our personal and private lives
Has been increasingly colonised by an alien type of thinking
It has been colonised by “functional rationality”
The rationality used by governments and market-forces
In which decision making is shaped by issues of money and power
While in the lifeworld
Our families, our communities
We are more receptive to normative and moral considerations
Our behaviour is guided by “communicative rationality”
The consequences of this colonisation, he argues
Are, firstly, social conflict
Secondly, the formation of new social movements
Marcuse said: it is not the existence of this type of rationality
Which causes conflict
But the way that it is used
The attempts to spread this framework
For interaction and communication
Into our homes
And into every part of our society
This is something which should resonate
With both sides of the spectrum
Some people decry the bureaucratisation of our social order
The nanny state
And its expansion into our private lives
While some people focus on the negative aspects
Of the power that big business has over our democracy
Over our lifeworld
Such as the financialisation of food, water and energy
And, of course, the impact on the electoral process
It may feel like we are not trying to achieve the same things
But what is it that everybody really wants for their children?
A high-quality education system
A network of roads and rails on which to travel
A reasonable balance between work and recreation
It may feel like we are not trying to achieve the same things
But this is only because our needs and desires
Have been warped and distorted
Corrupted by issues of money and power
By those from both sides
Who claim either to represent us
Or to have our best interests at heart
But who colonise us instead
Criminonymous
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1
May 27, 2012 at 10:21 -
“But what is it that everybody really wants for their children?”
No, not the things mentioned, which may possibly, in some form, be at the bottom of the list. No, what increasing numbers want is to kill the children before they get to take a breath of air, or drive the fathers from their young lives if the kiddies make it past the ‘clinic’ on the corner. They want a buck for the kid. Many bucks in fact, provided by the ‘Gummunt’.
And the rationality is not so much ‘functional’ as disfunctional ‘Femi-logic’. All ‘in the best interests of the children’, as Adolph wrote.
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3
May 28, 2012 at 12:02 -
why o why can folk like Habermas not realise the distinction between social interaction such as commerce and familial interaction such as caring for a loved one?
‘society’ is not and cannot be considered in terms of family. for Habermas to deem the mechanisms by which strangers can interact for mutual benefit in commercial transactions to be ‘unnatural’ and instead idealise the enforcement of familial morality onto this larger scale sphere of social interaction is to ignore incentives completely.
Habermas is correct to percieve different decisions being made in these two areas however it is the same rational aspect of human nature at work. in both spheres the actors are responding to incentives.
the incentives that can be typically observed within a family are different to those found in the market. socialism is the wrong-headed attempt to transpose the ends of the familial sphere onto the social sphere without understanding that the means (the incentives) are completely different. then the socialists are suprised when the big happy family doesnt materialise.
for anyone confused by socialists’ predeliction for maternalism and why it can never work please see ‘Human Action’ by Ludwig von Mises.
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