Date: 14 Mar 2002 15:12:00 -0600
Subject: HAB: Lifeworld


Gary, Matt, list,

Excuse me for butting in, but I am especially interested in the 
lifeworld as Habermas employs it, and some of the comments I have seen 
appear to me to be confused.  So rather than sit on the sidelines 
scratching my head ...  Besides, what I have to say relates this thread 
to an earlier one.

One way to understand the lifeworld is to consider what motivates our 
adoption of this way of talking: why would we introduce a term that 
refers to something that we can't see or touch anyway?  Doing so only 
invites confusion.  So, I think a good approach would be to ask, what 
motivates Habermas to adopt the concept of lifeworld?

Any social action can be interpreted in a variety of ways.  Consider 
these actions:

a. I divert someone's attention. (Strategic)
b. I ask for recognition. (Norm-conformative)
c. I express my feeling that someone is acting like a fascist. 
(Dramaturgical)
d. I introduce a question. (Communicative)

The statements a-d are formulated from a 1st-person perspective, and 
reflect my intentions.  The same actions could be described from a third 
person perspective.

a. He raised his hand.
b. He raised his hand.
c. He raised his hand.
d. He raised his hand.

This example can be collapsed even further.  Suppose I am in a class, 
and I want to ask a question.  I raise my hand.  By doing so, I have 
communicated to the teacher and others that I want to speak.  At the 
same time, I have conformed to the norm of hand-raising.  At the same 
time, I have expressed my frustration with something the teacher has 
just said.  At the same time, I have tried to impress the person sitting 
next to me (maybe she'll agree to study with me this weekend).  I think 
this could go on indefinitely.  At the same time, I could be obeying an 
imperative (Kant).  At the same time I could be exercising my free 
speech.  At the same time I could be trying to stay awake.  At the same 
time I could be referring to Wittgenstein.  At the same time ...  

(I am claiming that the same action can be strategic, norm-conformative, 
dramaturgical, communicative, instrumental, *etc.*, simultaneously.  It 
is possible for me or for an observer to recognize all these 
actions--though there might be some practical limit to what I could 
think I am doing simultaneously--as actions I performed in the motion 
of raising my hand.)

The lifeworld can thus be seen as (1) our socially formed disposition to 
interpret any particular action in one way(s) or (an)other(s) and (2) 
all the possible interpretations we might apply (with limits--thus the 
horizonal quality of the lifeworld).  The usage '"our" lifeworld' 
reflects the social process through which our social disposition has 
been constituted.

When Habermas writes of the "communicative lifeworld" I think he is 
specifically appealing to just such an understanding, with particular 
reference to our capacity to communicate--that is, to perform and 
understand each other's speech acts.  When someone raises her hand in my 
class, how do I (and everyone else there) know what she is doing?  How 
do I know she is in my class?  How do I know that *she* wants to ask a 
question--rather than the man three chairs away?  etc.

So, the archive of the discussion list is at best (relative to the 
lifeworld) a collection of indications of the lifeworld that we more or 
less share.

In response to Matt, who writes: 

M: "In particular, his lack of recognition of let's say the ongoing 
subterranean conflicts which the settled structures of the Lifeworld 
mask...."

B: When we speak of masking by settled structures of the LW it is 
important to distinguish the sources of particular structures.  I prefer 
to speak in the manner of Dewey of "disequilibrations" rather than 
conflicts.  Such imbalances can have their source within the lifeworld. 
 Perhaps men were given more opportunities in sports because they were 
larger and stronger and faster.  Now we recognize that sports is not 
just about who's the strongest physically, it's about skill and mental 
strength.  So there's something wrong with leaving women out of sports. 
 But imbalances can be imposed from above.  The administrators at a 
school agree that girls can benefit from and enjoy sports, but there is 
not enough money to hire coaches and buy equipment, so the girls have to 
do without.  Besides, (shifting to a college example), the alums say we 
cannot cut back on football or they'll stop donating.  So a law is 
enacted that opportunities have to be equal between the sexes--which 
motivates some Institutions to distort the interest among women in 
sports at their school.  I hope this makes clear that I think the 
rationalization and colonization theses in Habermas are precisely about 
"the ongoing subterranean conflicts which the settled structures of the 
Lifeworld mask".  Those are theories about how some of those structures 
arise.

M: "All sorts of visual, linguistic, and situational cues present 
(prep.)  to social interactions manage the implicit hierachical and 
oppressive order of the Lifeworld...."

B: I question your use of the word "implicit."  The lifeworld is not 
*necessarily* hierarchical or oppressive--even though our lifeworld is 
both, and it is so implicitly and explicitly.  When a situation is 
thematized as oppressive--are there oppressive situations that are not 
so thematized?--this thematization is contingent.

Matt: "In Habermas, the Lifeworld is something of a sacred cow."

B: The concept of the LW is fundamentally necessary to 
Habermas--theoretically it is sort of like a sacred cow, since it is 
inconceivable within his communicative theory to do away with the open 
quality of the LW that enables interpretation and performance.  
Within the vast reservoir of the LW there are many treacherous, 
uninvestigated depths--as well as sharks right on the surface.  But 
(switching metaphors again) killing this sacred cow, would be the end 
of life as we know it.

Matt: "Obstacles to the development of emancipatory consciousness are 
not always institutional and the Lifeworld (as I think Foucault more 
clearly grasps) is the repository of an insidious and permanent form of 
oppression/suppression."

B: Obstacles ... can be big-I institutional (originating in government 
or corporate society), little-I institutional (originating in language 
practices, norms, rituals, etc.), or non-institutional (ontic, 
developmental, etc.).  Again, I don't think you mean "permanent", or 
else whither critique?  But, even critique can have insidious and 
permanent effects that we regret.

I hope some of this is useful.  I may be able to follow up later on some 
of the other posts in this interesting thread.

Bill Hord


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