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ReconcilingtheIrreconciliable?UtopianismafterHabermas
ReconcilingtheIrreconciliable?UtopianismafterHabermas
byJoelWhitebook
Source:
PRAXISInternational(PRAXISInternational),issue:1/1988,pages:7390,onwww.ceeol.com.
IN
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Praxis Inlernationa18:1 April 1988 0260-8448 $2.00
74 Praxis International
heimer, Adorno, and Marcuse differs qualitatively from Habermas's, I
that, this difference ought to be
well as theoretical reasons.
transformed the project the early
by the fact that he covers the same
of the instrumental reason,
istered capitalism etc..
of basic themes,
greatly
Before turning to substance of my lI.4.a.. 1I..&"-',d.'.... '\I
important element which enters here, and
topic in its own right for a cultural history the
namely, their almost instinctual contempt for the social Jl'JI...ll."-''-''Jl.G.'II.'-'
day; as much as they remained from Bolshevism,
contemptuous of the social democratic sensibility of time, tlley
viewed' as utterly soft-minded, self-deluding and ineffectua1
3
- a contempt
that Habermas does not share. the substance politics was
anti-Leninist, the form of their argumentation often was Bolshevik its
vehemence. The old Frankfurt School's diagnosis the crisis of modernity
and their solution, if we can call it that, hung together in that dire
diagnosis of the dialectic of enlightenment admitted no compromise with the
present reality, and drove them to a utopian of reconciliation and
redemption. Their predicament consisted in the that while they believed a
utopian solution was impossible, it followed from analysis that only a
utopian solution could break the dialectic of enlightenment .. Thus, when the
diagnosis of the pathologies of lTIodernity is substantially revised, as it has
been in Habermas, systematic motives which led Adorno and Marcuse at
least to the utopian terrain and into a politico-theoretical cul-de-sac are
eliminated. would also maintain that Frankfurt School's underdeveloped
appreciation of democracy and legality also follow from what has been
referred to as orthodoxy in their position.
A central issue these discussions is the question of historical a
subject that is already ambiguous in Marx, who maintained different positions
at different points in his career. YDung Marx, radical liberal , held, in
a Hegelian fashion, that intrinsically valid norms had been at least recognized
principle with the advent of modernity and the institutionalization of civil
society. What prevented their complete realization was the inhibiting function
the capitalist economy. As the rational already existed but an irrational
form, it was not necessary to go outside the sedimented norms of the
established order modern ethical life to locate a standpoint for critique.
political strategy that was called for by this analysis, thus, involved the
ilnmanent critique of civil society in terms of its own self-professed norms in
order to remove the economic impediments to the complete realization of
those norms. Whatever social, political or economic dislocation be
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Praxis International
75
of
involved, the passage from capitalism to socialism not entail a radical
hiatus or historical rupture with respect to the basic normative structure of
modern society. Socialism, in short, would represent the completion of the
practical project initiated by bourgeois-democratic revolutions, not its
abnegation or transfiguration. Habermas, as we shall see, is closest to the
young respect.
With late Marx situation is different and more complicated. To be
sure, after the scientization of his theorizing, the role of normative'considera-
tions in his thinking becomes altogether problematic anyway. But that is not
what I want to focus on here. Rather, I want to examine his notions of the realm
of necessity versus the realm of freedom, on one hand, and the
corresponding notions human pre-history versus human history proper, on
the other. For here we encounter an of a qualitative leap in,
or perhaps out of, the continuum of history (despite fact that it may rest on
the essential continuity technological development): from pre-
history, is mired in the realm of necessity owing to the of the
forces of production, to a of history resulting
of mastery of nature of a
transi-
the of
than as an
ethical-political accomplishment, is also problematic. again, I not
want to go into this here. I would, however, like to attention to one point,
namely, the "ontology the not yet,"- as has it, implicit in this
position. This ontology assumes that beings as they really are their
potentiality has yet to reveal itself history, which in fact has far only
been prehistory; they have yet to develop on own presuppo-
sitions. Correlatively, this ontology tends to devalue the perennial virtues as
we history as being distorted by struggle for
survival to Adam," (Bloch)4 and, at the same time,
immunizes of specifying the new norms as they
cannot necessity. of freedom
be governed unspecified unspecifiable set
to Marx's own position, then, is ultirnately utopian
goes ullacknowledged. The reason for this concerns Marx's (or,
more precisely Engel's) polemical stance toward utopianism in short run,
only in the short run. Which is to say, against the utopian socialists, they
argue, on materialist presuppositions as it were, that the attempt to realize a
communist society immediately is misconceived - is utopian in the bad
sense. Its institutionalization must wait until material conditions, without
which it remains an empty dream, have been fully developed, first under
capitalism then under socialism; only then can transition to communism
and the realization of a realm of freedom take place. The point is, however,
that Marx and Engels do not challenge, the ultimate vision of the utopians,
only timing its attempted realization.. effect, their entire strategy can
be viewed as a scheme for the "realistic" pursuit of the utopian ideal.
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Praxis International
Against these comments, then, I
systematic. whi'ch led
reconciliatory or JI. ..... _ ...... .lLAJ.V'-A
the turn to a utopian li. ... A".Il.A,II. ...Ij,li.A....
dialectic enlightenment . .&..lI.'-/Jl..JIl.....JI, ........ JIl..JII..AJl,.l.... Jl,.
and Foucault after
acterized as'Weberian monism. Such a .,....."....r...
its various adherents, identifies a
underlying process - 'whether it
fication, instrumentalization - as
views all developments - .Il.Jl,.JI."..
innovations modernity - as m
that 1I- ....... 1I-n.I .. +""1
..II.\'; Inost LJ' 1' '<lo.4A ..... AA&. ...
older ,......".. ...,.1r.. "..... ......
theorists, and in those elements new were A.A 4
all, what is One Dimensional Man e,ssentially
empirical concretization of The Dialectic ofEnlightenment?
be recalled, Marcuse argues that, as long as the system "".... 'II'"Ill1t'lI'1t"'ll'll'll4:l>C"
false needs and remains capable of producing goods to
be to integrate all opposition into a one-dimension
over, all apparent elements of rebelliousness within system
pseudo-appositional and can in fact be co-opted and used to
system.. Given this state of affairs, there are two possible ways of
its dissolution. The first was economic collapse (which of course
resulted a political catastrophe): if the system were ...A. ...... ......',........
the goods to satisfy the false needs it created,
mechanism would cease its functioning" The other option
attempt to generate non-economistic "true needs" to subvert and C'1l1l1'''\1I''''II.m.r)j1l'''ta1"
78 Praxis 1nternatidnal
are more or
not only
because,
and
a new
econo-
in Marcuse's analysis.
less as illusory epiphenomena
displayed a distinct of interest in traditional questions
presumably, they were formulated within the realm of
therefore belonged to "also justified his
sensibility and the adoption of an perspective in
mistic terms, namely, that conquest of nature was, at least
complete and abundance potentially obtainable. Even
priation of appears so is deeply for
his basic move, which the entire argument fQllows, is to reduce
much reality principle to economic scarcity.
6
Habermas's theoretical innovation against early Critical Theorists,
then, was to introduce, dualistic framework to their
monism. And his has remained throughout his career,
despite the various transformations scheme undergone, i.e.
instrumental vs. communicative reason, system vs.
gration, now system vs. lifeworld. Indeed, even gone so far
recently as to attempt a "flexible and deliberate
which construe as a dualist in this sense.
Be that as it may, introductio11 the dualistic was
intercOflnected theoretical and considerations. the
level, it allowed Habermas to argue against positivism
of the human including Niarxism, functionalism, 'll""-c'\{Tr-hlr'l.'ll'lt"'linli'(y(_"!C'
And at level, it allowed him to '-'V.JI.JI.'-''''''VII.Iu..Q.JI..JI.LJ''''''
advances moderllity which, in turn, provided an escape
the dialectic of enlightenment. There was thus a coincidence
historical analysis insofar as communication theory was meant to ..... J1.\,.&""'.i.'''-''iI.lt"..I:l.l.. _
counterfactual norms that are implicitly referred to
some sense, found institutional recognition,
and normative advances modernity
It cannot however, a consequeIlce of
substantial attenuation of the radicalism of the early critical
it be the purely theoretical radicalism of Adorno or the more
radicalism of Marcuse. I-Iabermas, neither thinks of himself as
garde" nor "dream[s] of a revolutionary subject," is a self-avowed "radical
liberal"g who rejects holistic revolutionary changes in advanced societies on at
least three grounds: (1) Our fallibilistic consciousness - as well as the lessons
of history - ought to deprive of the requisite hubris for such an undertaking.
(2) The unintended consequences of attempts at holistic transformation are
simply too uncalculable to be risked in complex societies. And (3) "a piece of
'existing reason''', however minimal, has been institutionalized in modern I
societies, which ought not to be violated, and which can potentially provide
basis for radical refornl; indeed, contrary to Adorno and Marcuse, he
maintains that is easier in modern than premodern societies. For
Praxis International 79
the first time history, the requirement for the rational justification of basic
norms has incorporated the self-understanding of a society; the
heteronomous appeal to dogmatic tradition can no longer in principle serve as
a valid justification for' basic norms.
It should be pointed out here, against the argument that Habermas's
recognition of the normative advances of modernity amounts to an uncritical
affirmation of capitalism, it could be maintained that just the opposite is
case: namely, that Habermas's theoretical advances provide critical theory
the conceptual tools to make a more compelling criticism of capitalism
was possible older version. Whereas Habermas can appeal to
sedimented norms, are in some sense existent and publicly acknow-
ledged, the old Frankfurt School, of necessity and on principle, could only
appeal to existential-aesthetic considerations in their critque of capitalist
culture and society; in the final analysis, opposition to capitalism was a
matter of taste, and fact, in part, accounted for and derived from
elitist character of their theorizing. I should add, moreover, that the
introduction distinction between system and lifeworld makes it possible to
diagnose the so-called of modernity without falling into a dialectic
of enlightenment, to more nuanced analyses of concrete social,
..... _... "'-_... ''''''' ... situations than was possible with the global critique of
.lI.A.a. ...' ... .A. ' ..I.\.JIo..ll.Jl"""JL..w.IA. ..... .ll. reason.
is not to say, however, that the attenuation of the early Frankfurt
School's radicalism which results from Habermas's recasting of Critical
Theory is unproblematic. Indeed, Habermas himself raises some very dis-
turbing points against himself in his important article on WaIter Benjamin.
9
Because article poses the problem in such a perspicuous manner, I would
like to recall its main argument here. Habermas cites a distinction of Bloch's
to formulate the question, namely, the distinction between the natural law
tradition that aimed at dignity and justice, on the one hand, and the utopian
tradition, which aimed at happiness on the other. Whereas Marx could still
maintain these two sets of intentions coincided with the proletarian revolu-
tions, subsequent history has revealed, so Habermas argues, that this is not
nfP,.,... t:=!>cC'r'1l1l"'''III'IT the case; economic prosperity and formal justice can, in short,
coexist political and cultural repression. "And it was precisely to capture
this state of affairs that Bloch introduced the distinction.
disjunction between justice and happiness is not simply a contingent
empiricallnatter, however, and in fact appears as a possibility because of the
very theoretical innovations Habermas introduces in order to overcome the
combination of "pessimistic anthropology" and "utopianism" that comprised
the dialectic of of enlightenment. Which is to say, a price that Habermas pays
for overcoming the totalized negative philosphy of history of early critical
theory, demonstrating what "modest" secular progress had occurred in
the realms of legality and m9rality, was to logically dissociate the question of,
justice from the question of happiness. With Habermas's theoretical innova-
tions, then, the logical possibility is at least opened of a social democratic or
welfare state comprise that 'would involve justice without happiness and
digrlity fulfillment. Quote the crucial passage:
80 Praxis International
Can we preclude the possibility of a meaningless emancipation? In r"A?"''II''''IA.,.,l''
societies, emancipations mean the participatory transformation of nril".."... ........,II:'''t',...,n't'll'\'[YO'
decision structures. Is it possible that one day an emancipated human race could
encounter itself within an expande'd space of discursive formation of and
be robbed of the light in which it is capable of interpreting its life as UI'-J'JL.ll.JL..... II. .... ./Io. .... ./Io. ... r-,
good? The revenge of a culture exploited over millennia fOf the 1P,n-'Ilf''Il"Mnn1"llA'lr''Ii
domination would then take this form: right at the moment
age-old repressions, it would harbor no violence but it would have no content
either.
Io
While this state of affairs might appear as utopian to certain _VJ\,Jl.II-_.II.JI...L!'I-"'IJ.II.I\,lil..II.
post-modernists, it would have to be viewed as an
perspective of the historical project of critical theory. The ""'II ...... '.... _.a.,r"'.n.V'ar""ll.a.0
then, what is the fate of the demand for happiness,
Frankfurt school and much of the new left, after
Habermas?
In the two remaining sections of this paper, I would first to examine
several theoretical atempts to reintegrate utopian themes into AA "'...., ' .................... u
version of critical theory, and then to discuss some of the more _....,.IL.IL ' II>.
involved.
V
(1) It was largely in response to the criticism had forfeited too
of the original project of critical theory, I believe, that Habermas has recently
revised his attitude toward the concept of "reconciliation," which, of course,
was Adorno's emphatically utopian concept. In 1969, Habermas drew a strong
distinction between himself, as a philosopher of Mundigkeit (autonomy or
maturity), and Adorno, as a philosopher of reconciliation. Habermas argued
that had Adorno - in whom theological elements were still discernable
despite his atheism - given up the notion of reconciliation for Mundigkeit, he
would have been able to escape the cui de sac of negative dialectics: "Adorno,
undeviating atheist that he was . . . hesitated to moderate
reconciliation to that of autonomy and responsibility."ll Adorno C'lI"'IIof"""lI1!irll
in other words, moved from a philosophy of reconciliation to a II--'A.&..L,j\,""'-'I..JI'-J'jiJ.lLJl.
Mundigkeit in order to overcome the aporia of his position.
In the more recent Theory of Communicative Action, however, Habermas's
treatment of the notion of reconciliation is quite different. that
does not argue that Adorno should have abandoned the concept of recon-
ciliation for the concept of Mundigkiet, as he had earlier, but that Adorno
should have retained the desideratum of reconciliation and moved from a
philosophy of consciousness to a philosophy of intersubjectivity order to
fulfill it. In other words, Habermas argues that Adorno could have .11. ...... .11..11".&..11..&.'""."""
the intentions of his philosophy of reconciliation by abandoning the stand-
point of the philosophy of consciousness and moving to his (Habermas's)
standpoint of a theory of communicative action.
More specifically, Habermas,12 Wellmer, 13 and Benhabib
14
have all argued
81
pernlitted, neither the
and nor antithetical hostility would
communication of what was distinguished. Not
""""V.lLIl.'I.,,.'-lJIl. of as an objective concept, come
is the same as Habernlas's, J.W.] is
there is, the potential of an agreement between
n, .. CN ,,"'-...... to an interchange between subjects according to
reason. In its place, even epistemolo-
.... "" ...... r.. ..... .".. and in the realization of peace
hAt"'017j::}.t::..n men their Other.15
Adorno was after was
..,LJ''''',"Jl.,... nature, both inside and
fulfilled his emprlatic
reconciliation that excludes
82
Praxis International
reconciliation with mute nature, is to offer substantively -the- same deal
that Habermas offered him in 1969 only with the terminological pie cut up in a
different fashion. In my opinion, - while I disagree with Adorno, and'believe
that reconciliation with at least external nature is an untenable concept, - I
find it more as a heuristic strategy, to retain the earlier, sharper
distinction between Mundigkeit and reconciliation, rather than to blur things
in a night where all cows are reconciled. I believe there is a residual element of
bad conscience about the deradicalization of critical theory which leads
Habermas and others to enlist utopian vocabulary of reconciliation to
articulate a theory which is no longer utopian-.
(2) A second place where Habermas attempts ,to mediate the disjunc-
tion between formal considerations of justice and substantive considerations of
happiness, and address the utopian concerns of early Critical Theory is in hs
extension of Kohlberg's scheme of moral development to Stage 7. Habermas
enlists Kohlberg's theory of moral development in order to challenge the
thesis of "the end of the individual." He maintains that Kohlberg's scheme
can be used to demonstrate that progress has at least occurred in the important
realm of moral jU,dgment, and that this fact would be sufficient to refute a
totalized logic of decline.
Habermas proceeds to criticize Kohlberg, in turn, however, for not
extending his scheme far enough. Kohlberg, so Habermas argues, remains
arrested at the Kantian opposition of duty and inclination, where needs are
hypostatized as naturally given and are therefore not accessible cultural,
rational, and communicative influence. Habermas therefore proposes the
addition of stage 7 to the scheme where.
interpretations are no longer assumed as given, but are drawn into the
process of discursive formation of wilL Internal nature is thereby moved into a
utopian perspective; that is, at this stage internal nature may no longer be merely
examined within an interpretive framework fixed by the cultural tradition in a
nature-like way . . . Inner nature is rendered communicatively fluid and
transparen.t to the'extent that needs can, through aesthetic forms of expression,
be kept articulable or be released from their paleosymbolic prelinguisticality. 16
Benhabib is correct in her observation that in this and similar passages
"Habermas comes close to ..." - but only close to - " ... subverting [the]
bias of traditional normative philosophy,"17 namely, to separate formal
questions of rights, duties and justice, on the one hand, from substantive
questions of happiness and solidarity on the other. She enlists both Hegelian
arguments concerning the distinction between Moralitat and Sittlichkeit and
feminist arguments concerning the distinction between the generalized and
concrete other to attempt to resolve this ambivalence in Habermas in the
direction of an unequivocally utopian or transfigurative perspective which
would overcome the disjunction between formal and substantive issues. I will
argue, in contrast, that there are good reasons for retaining this disjunction to
an extent and backing away from a full-blown utopian position.
There are two possible was in which "inner nature" is to be "rendered
communicatively fluid and transparent" and "needs released from paleo-
Praxis International
83
symbolic linguisticality" can be interpreted. The stronger version, which
Benhabib advocates, would consist in the direct insertion of the demands of
inner nature into moral discourse. She is correct in observing, moreover, that,
were this to happen, it'would violate the "purity of the normati.ve realm" as it
is has been defended in the rationalist tradition from Kant to Rawls. This
tradition has consistently sought to separate the "public discourse of justice
fro-m the more private discourse of needs,"18 in large part, to secure the
objectivity and universality of normative discourse.
Habermas, who wants to fulfill adequately the requirements of this
tradition, adopts the weaker version which envisions a more oblique input of
the demands of inner nature into moral discourse, namely, through the
mediation of the aesthetic-expressive realm. Indeed, after the publication of
the Theory of Communicative Action - which clearly recognizes the differen-
tiation of modern rationality into the cognitive-scientific, moral-legal and
aesthetic expressive realms - he could articulate his position better than at
the time the above passage concerning Kohlberg was first written. Habermas
now seems to be maintaining that the realm where nature can find its
proper expression is the aesthetic-expressive and that the aesthetic-expressive
will somehow inform the moral-legal. Everything turns, of course, on how one
conceptualizes \\That Wellmer has called the "permeability" between the
various realms.
The adoption of the weaker version, so it seems to me, is consistent with
Habermas's softening of his interpretation of the ideal speech situation,
which, in turn, is itself a concomitant of the "de-transcendentalization" of his
position, from a "transcendental anthropology," as he called it at the time of
Knowledge and Human Interests to his more recent "reconstructive science."
Habermas states, in "A Reply to my Critics":
nothing makes me more nervous than the imputation - repeated in a number of
different versions and in the most peculiar contexts - that because the theory of
communicative action focuses attention on the social facticity of recognized
validity-claims, it or at least suggests, a rationalist utopian society. I do
not regard the fully transparent society as an ideal, nor do I wish to suggest any
other idea . . .19
Indeed, following Wellmer, Habermas explicitly affirms the desirability of
maintaining a between the formal conditions of a free society and the
substantive instantiations that those formal conditions might receive. The first
be of discourse ethics, the second of practical politics.
goes on to suggest that any approximation to the concept of the
life that we could speak of today would involve some sort of contingent,
unspecifiable felicito'us "balance among moments incomplete in them-
selves, an equilibrated interplay of the cognitive with the moral and the
aesthetic-expressive." cautions us
-however, [that] the attempt to specify an equivalent for what was once meant by
the idea of the good life ought not to mislead us into inferring an idea of the good
life from the formal concept of reason with which the decentered understanding
of the world in the modern age has left us.
20
84
Praxis I ntemational
85
.. - ........a..a.II,..UJl..lI."JI..Jil. tendencies. for example, arguing against Habermas, has
norm of consensus for politics, and maintained that what is
free society is not consensus, but, on the contrary, dissent.
21
Lyotard's concern is certainly well taken. However, his position remains
inadequate because fails to address a key issue concerning the relation
between consensus dissent. He never asks what sort of minimal consensus
-""'11 ......JL.A. ...... _ in order to have a society that not only tolerated but valued
of lifeforins, difference, ete? Lyotard's counter-phobia
potentially authoritarian or terrorist implications of consensus
him from investigating the conditions of the possibility of dissent
are left with the danger from the other direction, namely, an
everything-goes frivolity which respect for difference as an ethico-
political achievement undoubtedly be lost.
It is precisely this sort of minimalist transcendentalism or soft foundationa-
lism - has internalized critique of first philosophy without
falling skeptical - that Habermas has aimed at throughout his
career 0 The first version, transcendental anthropology, it will be recalled, was
already characterized as "quasi-transcendental," and much of the debate
about J<:nowledge and Interest centered on the question of whether this
quasi-transcendental discourse was tenable. And the later version, recon-
science, represents a further softening of that already softened
..... Jl.ll.UJLJII.'"'Jl..ILJI.. Now Habermas is trying to defend a fallibilistic founda-
borrows features from both empirical science and first phil-
Once again, much the discussion has concerned the tenability of
reconstructive discourse. And, as I have argued, the softening of the
transcendentalism has been accompanied by a corresponding softening of the
utopian interpretation of ideal speech situation from the rather grandiose
claim "our first sentence expresses unequivocally the intention of
universal and unconstrained consensus,,22 to the more cautious statements we
have considered above. I do not want to enter into the details of either theory
here; versions are, to be sure, fraught with serious difficulties. I do want
to point however, that, despite the difficulties, the attempt to formulate
this soft transcendental discourse somewhere between empirical science and
first philosophy is programmatically correct, as it were. It seems to me that
a discourse can avoid both the self-destructing dogmatism of
as well as the equally self-destructing skepticism
for lack a term, post-modernism.
Before concluding this particular portion of my paper, I would like at least
to indicate what I take to b,e the deepest philosophical and psychological layer
involved this discussion of transcendentalism and utopianism: i.e., the
layer pertaining to the unifying impulses of the mind. Castoriadis points to a
"monadic core of the psyche,,23 which, he argues, consists in the n10st
-t,.lI'1l'",\rI!ol'll'"ll"'t::..n1"f1tR yet unrepresentable wish of psychic life, namely, the wish to
restore undifferentiated unity of primal narcissism or the symbiotic phase
that existed prior to diremption of subject and, object and the emergence of the
individuated self. The reason that this wish cannot even be represented is that
representation itself presupposes the distinction between subject and object
86 Praxis International
which is the very condition this wish seeks to overcome. Castoriadis argues,
further, that this wish for unification, which exerts continuous pressure on
psychic life at the same time as more "mature" wishes aim at determinate
objects, is at the origin of both the most monstrous as well as the most sublime
products of mental life. On the one hand, "the monster of unifying madness,"
as he calls it, lies behind not only the clinical madness of psychosis in the strict
sense, but also the intellectual madness of an instrumental reason which seeks
to reduce "the world [to] a gigantic analytic judgment"24 political madness of
the totalitarian state as well. On other hand, however, it cannot be denied
that "[t]he sperm of reason is also contained in the complete madness of the
initial autism. An essential dimension of religion - this goes without saying
- but also an essential dimension of philosophy and science derive from this
..."25 impulse to discovery unity in diversity.
What conclusion, then, are we to draw from the fact that madness and
reason have their origins in the same source? Neither that man is a "sick
animal" nor that he is a "rational animal" as such, but that he possess an
equipotentiality for sickness and for reason, both deriving from the same
source. This fact finds itself reflected in the Kantian notion of regulative ideas
and in the Freudian notion of the ego ideal, which is its psychoanalytic
analogue. Both of these concepts exhibit a similar paradox. Kant, to recall the
argument, maintains that the human mind, by its very natures, posits ideas of
finality, totality and consistency, which is to say, ideas of unity, that it must
asymptotically pursue but can never attain. Similarly, Freud maintains that
the psyche posits an ego ideal which is the heir to the undifferentiated
perfection of primary narcissism: "What he projects before him as his ideal is
the substitute for the lost narcissism of his childhood in which he was his own
ideaL"26 And, once again, although the ego ideal is to be striven after by the
ego, its actual attainment would result in manic psychosis. While too great a
distance between the ego and the ego ideal results in lethargy, complacency
and depression, its attainment, were it possible, would cause "all [the]
acquisitions which have made us human beings [to] collapse like a house of
cards.,,27 The paradox in the case of both Kant's regulative ideas and Freud's
ego ideal is that we are compelled to pursue something whose attainment
would be undesirable; to achieve them would be just as inhuman as not to
strive after them. And just as psychic wellbeing requires the maintenance of
the proper distance between the ego and the ego ideal, so theoretico-political
wisdom, as it were, requires the proper tension between the utopian urge
toward completeness and the diffuseness of experience 28
-After this long digression, let me return to Benhabib. She argues, as I have
already mentioned, for the stronger version of the articulability of inner
nature, i.e., that it can and ought to be inserted directly into moral discourse.
It is precisely at this point that she identifies the utopian or transfigurational
element which extends her theory beyond Habermas's. In language which
evokes the Freudo-Marxist tradition, Benhabib maintains that, through what
she calls "moral-transformative experience,"29 the "threshold of repression"
can be lowered and inner nature rendered linguistically transparent. From a
psychoanalytic perspective, however, her suggestions leave something to be
Praxis International 87
attempts to criticize - or at least supplement - Habermas
distinction between the "generalized other" and the
UILUJl.Jl"l..olJLI!J'U' ..IL.Il. ... 1L. of the generalized other, which is assumed
theory, abstracts from all the concrete needs,
etc. other, and considers him or her only in his or her
U...:JIL'_""II..U as a rights-bearing person with whom I am reciprocally
as another abstract, rights-bearing person. A theory of the concrete
contrast, attempts to colonize the territory formerly occupied by
classical ethics - particularly Aristotle's theory of friendship; it views the
not terms of abstract universality, but of concrete individuality. The
norms to it appeals, according to Benhabib, are responsibility, bonding
and sharing which correspond to the moral feelings of love, care, sympathy
and solidarity. Benhabib, correctly argues that "the universalistic ethics of
justice were attained at cost"31 of silencing this dimension.
While I am sympathetic with Benhabib's attempt to rehabilitate the
concrete dimension of classical practical philosophy to correct the one-
sidedness of modern moral theory, there are nevertheless certain difficulties in
her argument that I would like to discuss. These difficulties concern the
question of the institutional location and the extent of the generalizability of
an ethics of the concrete other. More specifically, Aristotle's theory of
friendship presupposed the limited and parochial context of a rather small and
relatively homogeneous community; indeed, one of his reasons for wanting to
limit the size of the polis was to maintain familiarity and solidarity among its
members. The question becomes, then, How can this sort of theory be
desired insofar as they fail to consider psychodynamics adequately - an
absence which, it might be added, has characterized Habermas's theory since
his early Freud interpretation, has only gatten worse with his turn to
cognitive psychology.
can attest to the' fact that any attempt to lower
"the threshold of repression" and render the unconscious conscious - which
is, after all, what we are talking about - encounters the ubiquitous
experience of resistance. Any scheme for making the unconscious conscious
must, therefore, provide a means for dealing with the resistances. In the case
of clinical psychoanalysis, of course, the management of the transference
provides such a means. And while the management of the transference may
not necessrily present any difficulties in the carefully circumscribed limits of
the clinical setting, its exportation to the political realm is fraught with
danger.. it will be recalled that this was one of the major criticisms
Habermas received his attempt to model political enlightenment on
psychoanalytic enlightenment-in Knowledge and Human Interests: namely, that
the only possible substitute for the transference to the analyst was the
transference to Party or to a charismatic leader. Likewise, Benhabib
herself criticizes for having recourse to an "educational dictator,"30
who structurally the function of a transference figure in his
theory. she can provide a unobjectionable means for
solving same remains rather naive from a psycho-
dynamic point
Benhabib
by introducing
"concrete . "
In .11,.11..&, ...
desires,
88
Praxis International
transposed to a complex, heterogeneous and pluralistic society? The arlarchist
and decentralist traditions, at least, clearly perceived this problem when they
argued for the decentralization, which would mean the de-differentiation of
complex societies in order to achieve this sort of solidarity. If one is unwilling
to accept the decentralist solution, however, which sacrifices the advantages of
differentiation and complexity, how is this question to be answered?
Given the situation of institutional differentiation that holds under condi-
tions of modernity, it seems to me that - in addition to the family - the
appropriate location for an ethics of the concrete other would be in the
self-organizing associations of civil society which Hegel anticipated in his
concept of the corporation, which are somehow approximated in the new
social movements. Indeed, Benhabib herself makes a similar suggestion when
she introduces the distinction between "polity" and "association":
It is more correct to speak of a 'polity' of rights and entitlement and an
'association' of needs and solidarity. By a 'polity' I understand a democratic,
pluralistic unity, composed of many communities, but held together by a
common legal, administrative, and political organization. Polities may be
nation-states, multi...national states, or a federation of distinct national and ethnic
groups. An association of needs and solidarity, by contrast, is a community in
action, formed by a set of shared values and ideals, which upholds the
concreteness of the other on the basis of acknowledging his or her human dignity
and equality. The perspective of the generalized other urges us to respect the
equality, dignity and rationality of all humans qua humans, while the perspec-
tive of the concrete other enjoins us to respect differences, individual life-
histories and concrete needs. 32
While I am in basic agreement with this conceptualization, what I would like
to stress is its distinctively non-utopian dimension. The ethics of the concrete
other does not enter directly into moral discourse nor does it supersede a
formal theory of rights. Substantive democracy, in short, does not replace
formal democracy as much of the historical left had imagined and hoped it
would. Rather, an institutional sphere of associations exists where substantive
ethics of the concrete other can be practised, but this sphere itself is
embedded in a larger polity, which it can influence, but which is nevertheless
governed by formal justice. The question of the permeability between the
different institutional realms, between the associations and the polity, arises at
this point as well. The institutional core of the polity itself, however, is not
transfigured. Thus, although the new social movements - interpreted along
the lines of the associations of civil society - may have inherited much from
the traditions of classical ethics, utopianism, council communism, the new left
etc., this arrangement owes an important debt to the modern liberal tradition
as well.
The pluralistic sensibility of a post-Marxist, de-centered left - which can
no longer appeal to the privileged position of an agent of social change or a
vanguard party and which has developed an appreciation of "difference" -
cannot assume an ultimate reconcilability of needs, however linguistically
articulable they may become. which was formerly believed to be a
product of economic scarcity and class society, is an uneliminable fact of
Praxis I ntemational
89
collective life which always require a form of justice to mediate it.
Moreover, this,is not something to bemoan, for conflict and dissent provide
the material for political life; a thoroughly harmonized society would be a
thoroughly apolitical society. This means that, while the self-organizing
associations of civil society may be based on elective affinities and governed by
substantive ethics the concrete other, abstract principles of justice will be
necessary to adjudicate the unavoidable conflict will inevitably arise
between them.
Finally I would like to raise the question of generalizability of certain
moral sentiments. Freud, it will be recalled, rejected the command to "Love
Thy Neighbor" because he thought such an indiscriminate generalization
debased the idea of love, and I tend to agree him. At the same time,
however, it seems to me that we can ask for more than the indifferent attitude
of "respect" as the universal attitude we ought to have toward all persons. We
can, in short, do better th.an the liberal notion of mutual indifference. What is
required I believe is something like a spectrum of moral sentiments and of the
institutional locations corresponding to them, stretching from love, at the one
end, through friendship, solidarity, to respect, at other.
NOTES
1. Unpublished manuscript.
2. Seyla Benhabib, Critique, Norm, and Utopia: A Study 01the Foundations ofCritical Theory (NY, 1986).
3. See Helmut Dubiel, Theory and Politics: Studies in the Development of Critical Theory, trans. by B.
Gregg (Cambridge, 1985), 18-21.
4. Cited in Hans Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility (Chicago, 1984), 198.
5. See Herbert Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation (Boston, 1969), and "The End of Utopia," in Five
Lectures (Boston, 1970), 62-82.
6. Joel Whitebook, "Perversion and Utopia," Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought, (forthcoming).
7. Jiirgen Habermas, (The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol 1, trans. Thomas McCarthy, (Boston,
1984), 140.
8. Jiirgen Habermas, "A Philosophico-Political Profile," in Habermas: Autonomy and Solidarity, ed.
Peter Dews (London, 1986), 188.
9. "WaIter Benjamin: Consciousness-Raising or Rescuing Critique," in Philosophical-Political Profiles,
trans. Frederick G. Lawrence, (Cambridge, 1983), 129-164.
10. Habermas, Philosophical-Political Profiles, 158.
11. "Theodor Adorno: The Primal History of Subjectivity - Self-Affirmation Gone Wild," Philosophical-
Political Profiles, 108.
12. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, 390.
13. Wellmer, "Truth, Semblance and Reconciliation," Telos, 62, (Winter 1984-85), 98ff.
14. Benhabib, Critique, Norm, and Utopia, 213ff.
15. Adorno, "Subject and Object," The Essential Frankfurt School Reader, ed. Andrew Arato and Eike
Gebhardt (NY, 1978), 500.
16. Habermas, "Moral Development and Ego Identity," Communication and the Evolution of Society,
trans. Thomas McCarthy, (Boston, 1979), 93.
17. Benhabib, Critique, Norm, and Utopia, 342.
18. Benhabib, Critique, Norm, and Utopia, 339.
19. Habennas: Critical Debates, ed. J. Thompson and David Held (Cambridge, 1982), 235.
20. Habermas: Critical Debates, 262.
21. The Postmodem Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi
90 Praxis International
(Minneapolis, 1984), 6S ff. See also Seyla Benhabib, "Epistemologies of Postmodernism: A Rejoinder
to Jean Lyotard," Nw Gennan Critique, 33 (Fall, 1984).
22. Jurgen Habermas Knowledge and Human Interests, trans. Jeremy J. Shapiro (Boston, 1971), 314.
23. Cornelius Castoriadis, The Imaginary Institution of Society (Cambridge, 1987), 297.
24. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, Dialectic ofEnlightenment, trans. John Cumming (NY, 1972),
27.
25. Cornelius Castoriadis, op. cit., 300.
26. Freud, "On Narcissism: An Introduction," The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works
of Freud, trans. and ed. James Strachey (London, 1975), Vol. 14, 94.
27. Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel, "Some Thoughts on the Ego Ideal: A Contribution to the Study of the
Illness of Ideality," Psychoanaltic Quarterly, 45 (1976), 352.
28. Compare this with my somewhat different treatment of the subject in an earlier article: "Autonomy
and Redemption," Telos '69 (Fall 1986), 155-6.
29. Benhabib, Critique, Norm, and Utopia, 313ff.
30. Benhabib, Critique, Norm, and Utopia, 337.
31. Benhabib, Critique, Norm, and Utopia, 311.
32. Benhabib, Critique, Norm, and Utopia, 351.