Subject: Re: [HAB:] Foucault and Habermas
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2003 00:12:44 +0000


List,

The things you read, when you *read* :-). I read again Habermas's thesis on 
internal colonization this morning (V2 Chap8.2) and was struck (again) by 
how Foucauldian it is. Sure specific points of reference are dissimilar but 
there glaring convergences on both a macro and microanalytical level. 
Briefly, both JH and MF examine modernity from the p.o.v of rationalization 
and seek to explain the pathological phenomena/malaise of advanced modernity 
in terms of these rationalization processes. Both focus on the *destructive* 
effects of capitalism, and both examine albeit at varying degrees of 
sophistication and insight perhaps) the dialectic of what Habermas calls 
empowerment and tutelage and (I think) Foucault would treat as processes of 
capitalist subjection.

Now, I am not disregarding the wide DIVERGENCES in their approaches either, 
but sometimes it is useful to subvert the dominant adversarial disciplinary 
paradigm and focus on the points of convergence.

Cheers,

mattP.

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