Habermas vs Foucault - Is Modernity an Incomplete Project?

[kika1767]

Where is the book? rsrs

[kika1767]

Where is the book? Please!

[TheHomoludens]

Denito, I like your message.

And I definitley dislike Habermas, with his intellectualized form of elitism, which yet explains nothing to anyone that doesn´t share the same connotations concerning his language.

Like Popper critizised: nominalism instead of essentialism - which is btw the answer to the question why there are so many "experts" who know almost "everything" about almost "nothing".

Habermas is the shit, he claims to critizise.

Keep up your work!

[barleyherb]

Marry me.

[bukowski1912]

IGNORANT



[MrVitaactiva]

I think your reading of Habermas is a bit simplistic. But despite that, I do agree with you on how we should face contemporary problems. Like Foucault, we have to rethink and problematize modern practices by examining their historical contingencies. We have to analyze the conditions of the possibility of thought in order to rethink their application in the contemporary - specifically, with medical practice, psychiatry, prisons, law, and social science - well, "science" in general.

[timetochilli]

post modernism fucked us up foucalt is one of dem dumb nietchean dick blackmail? he has never read hthe enlightement philosophers he can never read them the enlightenment was supressed stop creating the "other" and blaming shit on them if we grasped the enlightenment then fully and not listened to dumb post modernist idiots we would of got to better places how fitting that things got even worse after the post modern period!

[Oliveracpv]

couldn't be more stupid. go to a decent french college, please. save your brain, its not too late.

[otterhead10]

I dig your enthusiasm. Some good points!

[TheKoo2010]

What a total cock

[denito9474]

@PersonVanInternetz hatersgonnahate.jpeg

[denito9474]

@PersonVanInternetz

Oh yay, /b/tards....

[shakeyourdimsims]

Lol. tuning the machine in this nightmare dystopia. fight the power denito

if i was in charge you would be straight to the gulag motherfucker.

[ndseifi]

Every single negative comment made on this video about the author's vanity or whatever, without actually addressing the specific arguments, tells us all we need to know about how little such users understand about the philosophers discussed.

[code933k]

@ndseifi Not necessarily, it is just that he is too annoying, superfluous and mentally linear to be worth extensive reply. He can repeat random sentences as a parrot, yet can't grasp the deal with dialectic mental structures.

[ndseifi]

@code933k And I suppose with an "extensive reply" you'd be able to resolve once and for all the ideological differences between Habermas and Foucault? (Oh and don't forgot the character count.)

The author of this video has made a reading of a select few points in the text and consequently offered up an opinion. That is, whether you like it or not, the very function of an essay. The point is, it is very easy to attack without offering anything of substance with which to expand the discourse.

[code933k]

_Opinion_ doesn't count in Philosophy since Plato. At least not in the way you -appear to have- meant. Also, _Essay_ is a procedure about rigorous points of view following the usual analytical requirements of a given text, not about kids yelling against an Author without -even- getting the inner logic and main concepts of a single part of his corpus. i.e., mass media, industry, rational.

I rest my case.

[denito9474]

You might be taking this video a bit too seriously. I just wanted to say "up yours" to habermas, it's only youtube after all. I tried to give some justification about why I was annoyed at habermas, and it's got nothing to do with trying to capture his entire corpus, it's to do with 2 pages in a small article he wrote. This is not an essay, but even an essay has a specific scope, I think the scope of this video is clear. Maybe youtube is not the place for the level of discourse you're looking for

[code933k]

@denito9474 Sorry my bad. Perhaps I've got a bit too much expectations in culture and our contemporary means of alienation. Once more, my sincere thanks for taking your time to reply.

[mzd15c0rd14]

@code933k there is an interesting point to be found here, regarding your first statement. i take it as a one of objectivity. there is much to be said about the issue, notably the quintessential Nietzschean line about its possibility/impossibility.

basically, i would like to point out that a strong argument could be made for opinion, or at least subjectivity, as being a foundation for philosophy.

[mzd15c0rd14]

@mzd15c0rd14 i also think that this 'kid yelling' represents an interest in a topic. no, it is not entirely informed on a historical basis (i appreciate your mention of Hegel), but it is one that could easily be turned into an essay with some work. as well, i prefer this youtube video to... well, everything on the most watched lists.

btw this is my first and last comment sequence on youtube. this interface sucks. it is not meant for any sort of discussion.

[denito9474]

@code933k

which are the dialectic mental structure I have failed to grasp? can you shed some light on them for me?

[code933k]

@denito9474 I know it is a mental pain for us -western individuals- but I could suggest you start fighting T. Adorno and some of his main writings on Enlightenment. The intricate dynamic of rationality vs. order/institutions and society in Habermas has its roots there. At least for the Marxist revisionists of Frankfurt, that people is way up to Hegelian historicism. Which I can't describe decently without going back to Hegel (which is beyond my strength) Cheers. I hope this is somewhat useful

[code933k]

@denito9474 PS:// What I meant is just: Do understand the dialectics in Hegelian historicism for understanding Frankfurt's further developments (and its intricacies when applied as a sociological method).

[mhjelholt]

Hopefully you're having a laugh at people for even watching your video. Obviously you're not even close to being competent of having these kind of discussions.

My advice: Find a school that actually find your thoughts interessting (if possible), write a Ph.D. teach for 10 years, get 10-15 articles about philosphy accepted in highly ranked journals and then go make a new video!

[denito9474]

ok, wait, wat? your ranking goes PhD, teaching, published articles, then youtube videos? really? I think you might have misjudged the importance of youtube videos.

[mhjelholt]

He He ok I guess you're right. Youtube is perhaps the right media for your thoughts. However I do not underestimate the value of youtube vidoes, especially when it comes to the exclusion/inclusion mechanisms that have given you only poor ratings and negative comments.

.

[huntertristan]

How come there are so many Aussie pseudo intellecturals rabbiting on about Habermas here on youtube?

this guy is a total dick.. fuck Foucault and plato. yeah right on dickhead.

[MahatmaClarity]

OoOoOoOoOohhh, you swore at Habermas. How very rebelious.

[jhdeleuzian]

Love Foucault, but not sure that his ethics takes us beyond care of the self - a neat aesthetic project, but not a normative one.

[dialectic76]

Foucault was not simply rejecting the Enlightenment - that's an over-simplification. He was endorsing the "attitude" of the Enlightenment, as expressed by Kant, without endorsing any "faithfulness to doctrinal elements" of the Enlightenment.

[musikist]

no Foucault does not 'endorse' the Enlightenment but accepts it as truely historical in the genealogical sense. enlightenment thinkers were still in a mode of creative transcendence. Foucault criticises the aftermath of the enlightenment by saying that the ideas that came from it should have been abolished and have changed since...but they haven't...that is his concern. the 'postmodern age' that we live in is for Focault rather stuck in modernity.

[dialectic76]

It is helpful here to read Moses Mendelssohn's "What is Enlightenment?" It would be over-statement to say that Foucault endorses Kant's view of Enlightenment and rejects Mendelssohn's. But clearly Foucault tells us that there is a "thread" that connects Kant's "Aufklarung" with himself. Foucault endorses the "attitude" of Enlightenment, without endorsing any kind of "faithfulness to doctrinal elements" of the Enlightenment.

[LikeAGlassAsterisk]

Denito,

I am inclined to agree with you about Habermas mainly because of his hanging on to the dream of the enlightenment of disengaged reason and objectivity. But do you also deny the possibility of progressing in enquiry through other means? Say engaged reason or objectivity, drawing on some hermeneutic conception of practical reason?

[pokepunk10]

you and your gurus......free thinkers are what count and free thinkers are what trascend...the rest is a political war of submission...this guy submitted himself to gurus...fetichized images of men who dream of possessing the truth...

Prepare for the future my friend....climate crisis wuill lead to social crisis, and together will lead to see whom the imposers of truth are.....

[desipseudointellect]

WOW! I've never wanted to slap someone so bad

1. The mass media-Look at the context you ass! He is talking about the "structural transformation of the public sphere." He laments the fact that contemporary mass media is not up to the task.

2. Habermas wants us to stop trying-WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU? he is too optimistic and too much of an idealist if anything. He believes in human rationality so much that he expects us to use it to overcome the distortions to achieve the "ideal speech situation."

[brokennarcissist]

1. Habermas coasted through life on his good looks.

2. I think Foucault might say that Truth legitimizes whichever structure of power is dominant.

3. I wonder what Habermas might say about a public intellectual such as say Sam Harris? Stereotyping muslims is protects freedom of thought (*cough* neo cons *cough*)

4. Habermas wants to abolish alternative discourses so that we may reductatively/collectively craddle the corpse of the Enlightenment.

[GLOKD]

zzz

[belzondium]

"These lofty debates with long words are just boring and fusty unless I include some expletives. That's what colours it up and makes it real for Generation Y"

-What You're Thinking

[brack1917]

sure. why not?

[belzondium]

Nothing, except that it's one of the many things that make gen Y seem phenomenally less intelligent than everyone else.

[rudeskapunk]

If you want to get married with a philospher of the XX century do it with Cornelius Castoriadis, the real source of Foucault's "original" notion of Critic.

[rudeskapunk]

First of all you must read a lot a authors before you can say the Thesis of Habermas. You think with your balls -although is seriously doubt you have them-. Cassirer and Touraine make serious analysis that are so much better that the one Foucault make. So read please. Then read Habermas again and see that the critic of Modernity the german philosopher is deeper that any of you irracional barks

[renlaz]

Suck my balls fuckin crackhead. No tienes ni los webos como para poner tu puto nombre. this is not the public sphere you idiot this is bullshit youtube. Get it? now go to a hub and do your thing.

[jsp2fz9aa]

suck my balls? who's the other public intellectual in your supposed intellectual interaction?, im sure you'd like him to suck your cock, or is that foucault?

[formless777]

You completely missed the boat. denito9474. Modernity is and must be an incomplete project by its very definition. "Modernity" means "That which is contemporary", and the contemporary is a rapidly moving thing. This is the joke behind the naming of "Post-modernism", as it definitionally brackets the "modernists" as a movement of the past as a means of discrediting them. The point is, what is truly contemporary moves on and philosophy merely comments on it post fact.

[denito9474]

Hello formless777, how are you today? that's nice. its true that the literal meaning of the term modernity is as you have described it above. However, it is quite common in academic fields to use the term Modernity to refer to a specific historical period (arguably 1750-1945?) and the cultural phenomena associated with it (industrialisation, urbanisation, democracy, the rise of science and rationalism, etc).

Anyway, I agree with your "the point is..."

[formless777]

I think you are being incredibly kind to the notion of modernity by giving it such a venerable pedigree. You are linking it to the enlightenment, whereas, I fear that what is called "Modernism" and "Modernity" is an entirely 20th Century movement and was badly outdated before the century was over, that seeks validation in a pedigree to which it has dubious claim. It was a poor choice of name.

[musikist]

yes as denito9474 has pointed out i don't think you quite understand the use of 'modernity' here. the 'modern' is a categorisation of a mode and body of thought. Foucault and many others would argue that we are not in a psotmodern society where we have moved on from objectivity ruling over all knowledge but rather we are fixed in a 'modern' rationale society.

[formless777]

@musikist I understand the misuse of the term modernity that is being employed here all too well. I also categorically reject this interpretation. Modern merely means contemporary. When something ceases to be contemporary, it ceases to be modern. Tacking an "ism" onto the word merely lends it an incongruously ideological baggage that is as out of place as antlers on a chihuahua.

[musikist]

@formless777 yes it does appear silly but that is besides the point. 'modernity' is a stupid name, due to it being confusing, however it is considered to be an 'era' of thought that is in the past. this is an issue amongst academics. do we exist in a post-modern era or a late modern one? if you reject this understanding of the term 'modern' then you will not be able to grasp the concepts and philosophical implications highlighted here.

[jonsays]

i am really tired of the 'coffeehouse philosophizing' here on youtube. i've seen worse -- but you are not exempt. are you flexing your mental muscle for all to see?

i am not suggesting this material stays OFF of youtube, but reserved for those can truly speak on the matter. the bookshelf and the gratuitous use of 'fuck' are banal facets of your vanity. your poor interpretation of these texts, coupled with thematic video edits makes for an entertaining failure. sorry.

[plutotheplanet1]

you are not an intellectual

[odiemarshhen]

The self indulgence of this person filming himself reading aloud, the time he took to edit it over and over and cut out anything that did not prop up his vanity further.... amazes me. No wonder so masturbatory a gesture as this results in his call for Habermas to suck his balls. Pathetic. Too hard to just write a first year paper on this topic? But then this posturing would have been rejected.

[aatishoo]

@odiemarshhen ..the guys entitled to his opinion just like you are ..i'm personally glad he posted his opinion on you tube it has helped me get a grip through some of the intellectual bullshit i have to read through for my dissertation.

[VindigoBlue]

@odiemarshhen Hello. This is Youtube. As in YOU. As in, a website created to facilitate peoples' need for self-indulgence. So I don't know why you would expect any different. Did you ever consider that maybe some editing was done because the video is, in fact, nearly ten minutes long and needed to be shortened, and not because this guy happens to love himself so much that he just HAD to make a lovely video about his views on Foucault and Habermas so all his admirers could see? I really doubt it.

[AestheticizeAnalog]

I prefer Foucault to Habermas, but I do not agree with either.

[Bassmaster86]

Habermas is a far more lucid and clear thinker than Foucault; and I think his legacy will only grow in posterity.  Foucault on the other hand commits himself to a very tenuous potion and I think alternitivley his thought will become less signifigant with time.

[AestheticizeAnalog]

They both miss the point of the problem with modernity.

[xpressivist]

and what do you mean by 'you didn't even understand him'? you mean i don't agree with him? well, i definitely don't agree with foucault on many issues, like his definition of 'power' in part 4, chapter 2 of his introduction to the history of sexuality. i'm sure you understand that 'to understand an author' doesn't mean 'to agree with him'.

[xpressivist]

you have no right to tell me to shut up, twat. why don't you just practice tolerance and stop typing as if it is your business to tell people what to say and not say in here? you think you understand foucault? tell me about it then. what is the argument for what? make it clear and don't hide under the cloak of obscurantism and snobbishness just because you think you know something. who do you think you are, white boy?

[xpressivist]

i am not offended by foucault, mate. i am only against the intellectual posturing of french 'philosophers' who give gibberish talks on issues they don't understand and confuse idiots like you.lol

[rhian1108]

Mate, dont think you have quite understood Habermas.......you should really do that before posting yourself across the internet next time......he definitely would not argue humans should adhere to enlightenment blackmail. Nice to see an interest in great thinkers though! Its a very dense theory, it needs reading over and over again before you can truly decide on an opinion as 'intellectual' as 'fuck you habermas'.......

[MuzakConcrete]

People should be allowed to say how they feel at a particular time. People are too afraid to commit themselves because they feel this pressure to read and read over, to do justice to the great history of philosophy. Fuck that. I'm not saying don't keep reading, but I think it's worth saying. If this guy wants to say fuck habermas then good.

[musikist]

if we can't say fuck you to who the hell we want then what have we become?

[code933k]

I don´t want to make an extensive reply here because as fast and sissy as you talk is too difficult to think for you and for everyone listening to you. However, instead of trying to make sound statements about the Enlightenment you should make a BIG review of the concept itself: "Modernity". As for your yells at "Mass Media": 1-) Learn to read with sense and meaning 2-) Learn to read Philosophy; and then 3-) Learn to read T. Adorno. I wonder if you made this video to show Habermas was correct.

[musikist]

interesting final thought!

[MichaelFrances]

Personally I side with Habermas.  Ultimately, he is optimistic and so I am.

[xpressivist]

foucault is already dead like his ideas. his 'history of sexuality i-iii' should be shelved as a work of fiction. it has no philosophical and scientific significance like the works of chomsky. i don't understand why many french philosophers and their confused followers love to entertain obscure ideas which chomsky correctly describes as "extremely pretentious...illiterate, based on extraordinary misreading of texts...and a good deal of plain gibberish".

[odinglaz]

maniac!!

I hope that I will not meet the same message somewhere else.

Were you personaly offended by Foucault?

[verwerg]

u like to hear/read yourselve over and over again, right?

copying your own text wherever it says "foucault".

you didnt even understand him so just shut the fuck up

[musikist]

that is because like so many american psuedo philosophers chomsky glorifies american sociology which is about as strong intellectually as a grain of rice. the strangth of foucault's work is in the chaotic way in which he approaches history. he clearly states that his version of history is neitzschian and genealogical, the antithesis to the modern historical mode. foucault's analyses of power is profound and i think the fact that so many reject his idea reinforces them simultaneously.

[xpressivist]

i don't understand the logic of what you're saying, man. oh, well, that's probably what you mean by "profound". i guess "profound" means "confused".

[musikist]

i'm not saying foucault was right by any means but if you understood foucault properly you would not be able to right him off in the manner you have. it is a simple matter that foucault's work cannot be read from the point of view of Westernised rationale, you must read Nietzsche to fully appreciate the works. foucualt is a brilliant commentator on the means by which the west believes reason to be the tool for all answers, by only mere fact can we know anything at all. I'm sorry people, it isnt

[ndseifi]

a) Foucault places too much weight on the Nietzschean idea of power.

b) Habermas is arguably the last Marxist in the sense that his commitment to Historical Materialism remained resolute irrespective of what happened in 1968. Remember if you give up the enlightenment, you give up Marx, and therefore the tools that enabled post-structuralism to exist in the first place.

[musikist]

foucault is always described by the sociological community as a post structuralist but he only indulged in the type of critique associated with post structuralism because the structuralist account was so terrible. maybe nietzsche isn't right about power but it his movement away from knowledge being truth that provides philosophical integrity. foucault does not so much argue with the way in which enlightenment thinkers produced ideas but the invariability of objective truths.

[NathanZimmerman]

Your criticism of Habermas doesn't find traction--he would be completely fine with challenging any institution that you want to challenge.

Ultimately, he wants society to function more like scientific communities--anything goes so long as you have the reasons to back it up. That is why, in the sections you quoted of Habermas, he says that there is this necessity of democracy for doing philosophy. It simply can't be done without the open atmosphere of questioning.

[zuluhootchie]

dude, you are just so awake and i thank you for helping me in understanding post modernity so much better.i love how you speak in layman's term to further describe or explain the theory and its stand point.thx

[xpressivist]

you look like a postmodern crackhead, man. in my view, modernity is indeed an incomplete project simply because of crackpots like you who have been hypnotized by french culturally insecure faddish craps whose line of thinking has slightly improved since pyrrho and diogenes the cynic. you need a dose of contemporary analytic philosophy of mind and science. my advice: stop reading heap of old tosh from france, man.

[lcan9239]

i feel that habermas's ideal of procedural rationality leads him to focus on how the domains/subsystems/discourse conditions can work more efficiently, and not on how individuals themselves may start to question norms and to actively participate in the public sphere. it is for this reason that i regard his approach to be less than radical and prone to encourage complacency. i think foucault has a much more helpful understanding of the role of the intellectual.

[rfarroc]

unfortunately, you haven't really understood habermas. in fairness, this take months if not years of reading. but you really should get the theory right before you start yelling 'fuck you, habermas' across the internet: it's reactionary and misses the point. you could at least find out what 'critical theory' means before you argue that habermas wants to condemn us to media systems and enlightenment blackmail. keep reading!

ironically, foucault usually leapt at the chance to suck balls.

[veggievampire]

I'll suck your balls. You are uber sexy! Care for a BJ?

[Victimoftheinsane]

another point, you're not altogether clear on what 'modernity' means to both thinkers. one of foucault's problems with disputes on 'modernity' and 'postmodernity' is the impossible vagueness of both terms. there is habermas' modernity, benjamin's modernity, adorno's modernity, pound's modernity, etcetera.

in a way, wouldn't you say that 'what is englightenment?' is in agreement with habermas that modernity is not only an incomplete project, but that it is perpetual/never complete?

[Victimoftheinsane]

foucault adopts baudelaire's conception of modernity, bracketing and defining the term clearly to mean the 'heroizing of the ephemeral present moment' (i paraphrase), a sort of aesthetic project to create one's life through, as you say, an ethos.

foucault is entirely in agreement with habermas that a critical philosophy of our time must be guided by kantian principles. but, as you noted, he is not interested in seeing what limits we should abide by, what would be 'legitimate' uses of Reason

[Victimoftheinsane]

but to examine what has been heretofore presented to us as legitimate and reasonable, and to engineer a future, a 'transvaluation of values' that would surpass established limits.

i don't think it's entirely right to read the essay as a polemic against the enlightenment. it indicates some of the differences that exist between him and a thinker like habermas, but also a fundamental commonality, the belief that kantian reason is worth salvaging, and a certain kind of modernity is crucial.

[Victimoftheinsane]

foucault and the frankfurt school have some serious differences, and i think that is basically what foucault/you refer to as the 'blackmail'. foucault's issue with habermas is basically just that habermas is a realist in the frankfurt school tradition- his belief is that Reason with a capital R bifurcated at a certain point in time and diverged from its kantian ethical/moral principles, becoming instrumentalized. foucault is a nominalist by obligation and refuses to posit some kind of originary

[Victimoftheinsane]

'Pure Reason' that all went wrong at a certain point. his interest is always in the multiplicity of rationalities (with a small r) that undergird specific practices, produce specific subjectivities and perpetuate specific power relations. hence it's not one univocal Reason that went awry, but limitless rationalities that have been implemented and put to use throughout history.

i think the difference is that foucault does not assign any sort of moral valuation to words like 'power' and 'reason

[Victimoftheinsane]

', there is a puerile assumption that 'power' is automatically despotic and evil. anybody who would come to such conclusions clearly hasn't read their nietzsche. that's foucault's 'power/knowledge'- power always presupposes a reasonable discourse that rationalizes it, rationality is always already situated in a certain relation of forces.

of course another huge difference between foucault and habermas is habermas' adherence to the frankfurt school's marxist humanism.

[junkdna]

i don't feel well

[chimombo]

Personally, I blame Kant for everything. Tried to get experience to fit reason. What a loser!

"There are no philosophies. Only philosophers." Remarked Nietzsche...

[chimombo]

I would go further. There are no philosophers. Only pretensions. What's the whiff?

Bourdieu gives some insight.

[iaeruo]

it would seem that anyone attempting to carry on the Enlightenment banner would have to come to terms with the role it played in the holocaust and the other 20th century disasters.

[boynamedblue]

what disasters did the enlightenment cause? these crimes were in direct contrast to enlightenment principles.

[iaeruo]

boynman...

what about Anthropometrics? What about Spencerism? that was directly related to Reason.

what about the "efficieny" of genocide? the categorying, numbering and systematic slaughter?

dude i think you need to read your history.

[iaeruo]

what i think you mean by direct contrast is the appearance of these crimes as illogical and mythic.

actually, the Enlightenment was built upon pre-Enlightenment myth, and inherently becomes mythological itself, thus Reason become illogical as history progresses.

go read the Frankfurt school philosophers, those in germany b/f and after WW2.

its simple, a seeminly cultured civilization can go pathological.

[iaeruo]

denito9497..

any thoughts about Adorno's critique of modernity? that science and techologies attempts to control and objectify nature paved the way for exploitation; that the self was modernity's first victim.

"the 'I' is the first commodity"

"the nazi camps and atom bomb were a direct outcome of the attempt by instrumental reason, through technology, to dominate the subject."

in this regard...Habermas pressing on, would explict or implict, carry with it the domination of the subject

[denito9474]

indeed, I am partial to a bit of frankfurt every now and then, I mostly agree with the concept of the dialectic of enlightenment and also with their critique of instrumental reason, but my favourite idea from them is the idea of the culture industry and its crucial role in the totally administered society

[rfarroc]

it could be that i'm reading a little too much into this comment, but if you've understood anything about the early frankfurt school you'll surely find the idea of being 'partial to a bit of frankfurt every now and then' as if it were a consumer product to be glib at best. and then to talk about the culture industry!

[whiff1962]

How many times can you say--in that irritating Down-underish accent--enlightment...or was that enlightedment?

Keep cutting your intellectual eye teeth, grasshopper.

[jjules85]

Oh, and final comment.

You should not believe that Habermas is nearly as optimistic about the future of a raitonalised 'public sphere' as you appear to. You seem not to have grasped the severity of his analysis of systems theory and its ability to totalise society - remember that this aspect of his work is approaching the bleakness of Adorno - whose work, in his own words, was nothing more than a 'message in a bottle' to future generations, or even civilisations, of the human race.

[jjules85]

If you want to give the finger to Habermas, you are going to have to do monre than question his motives for defending the enlightenment, and stop creating a straw man to beat down with Foucault.

Habermas's critique of Foucault and the other Nietzscheans is to do with Foucault's performative contradiction in denying the possibility of anti-foundationalist truth but simultaneously engaging in political praxis.

Step up and engage with Habermas's substantive theory on its merits.

[iaeruo]

jjules...also you have to come to terms with foundationalism and its absolutism, and the domination of the subject therein.

[jjules85]

Mate, I give you kudos for speaking your mind.

BUT...

This is a positively abominable caricature of Habermas. Your own interpretation of what the central questions of Modernity should consist of are precisely what Habermas advocates. You began the post by referring to the 'ethos' according to which we view the world and the possibilities of its transformation. Habermas's ethos arises from his discourse ethics, and this provides the normative foundation for questioning everything and anything.

[Jagvillhejhej]

You sounds like one of the Red Guards when you quot Foucault. Sieg Hail Focault. Everything should be criticized, besides Focault, the only man on earth that been able to deconstruct himself! madness

[denito9474]

i can't believe so many people have watched this video, it definitely has the best comments of all my videos. I don't think that anybody really 'gets' this vidoe, though. But lots of people seem to have seen parts of it that I didn't realise were in there. That's a pretty funny contradiction you've picked up on. Although, in my mind this vid is less about worshipping Foucault than it is about ragging on Habermas. I guess I would say that I am just using Foucault as a tool to attack Habermas.

[casperfrench]

Habermas is OLD so... I don't think he'll be sucking anybody's balls any time soon :)

I half agree with you. I'd chose Foucault over Habermas any day if it was a general popularity contest, but you can't fuck aaallll of his stuff. Just some of it...

[ndseifi]

you've misread habermas.

[denito9474]

probably. What's your take on it?

[cube11235]

You're cute.

[btankey]

why, when he gets really excited about foucault, does he approach then draw back from the camera as if to simulate a blowjob? i have to say, i agree with foucault in the theory of the subject, however habermas may have an insight that does not do what you claim it does (namely hegemonic redefinition), which can be a source of power within a discourse you exclude by your violent behavior towards habermas... why say 'fuck you' to habermas if not to reify the structure you wish to overthrow ?

[denito9474]

This is my favourite comment ever. in answer to your question at the end, I find it hard to say why I have a huge urge to say fuck you to habermas. The part in the middle in between the static was my original idea for the video, but I thought I needed to give more of an explanation, thus the rest of the vid around it, but it still doesn't pin down the real reason. I guess the F U is mostly to show that the new autonomous public sphere that he hoped for is here, but its nothing like he expected.

[rsdsouza]

From an amateur viewpoint understanding that there are these two philosophical standpoints, both seem to be two sides to the same coin, while you are enacting this coin on a smaller scale here. What I disagree with, is that there is an underlying assumption that we have choice in changing things. Maybe we only have choice in giving meanings... Like I just did .

[martynblackburn1977]

There is nothing I want more than to become enlightened about the whole highly complicated system of antagonisms that constitute the 'modern world' - Friedrich Nietzsche.

[eccentricitie]

I have two principal problems/questions: 1) Should we necessarily scrap all of our ideological principles, like reason, just because they are historically constructed, or should we try to rework our social system so that our systems of power are less oppressive? 2)Foucault's destabilization is exciting, but hardly productive. Once we've torn down the system and have dismissed Habermas, what have we got?

[SOFONISBA131088]

"the limits that have been imposed upon us"

It is not Habermas's fault we buy into the system.

[fashionablesss]

denito i like you cause u say that you think .. habermas is famous that doesnt mean that he is right. fuck habermasssss

[w3ndz12]

why don't you,debate person to person with habermas not through using your bullshit computer.i believe you cannot speak like that once you confront the person whom you are critiquing.you are indeed colonized by your bullshit ideology.

[denito9474]

What in particular about my comments do you find to be bullshit?

[Jullepwnz]

one can at least say that you do not believe in discourse ethics!

[0neironaut]

no, i think his fervent reply works well to point out one of the biggest jokes on Habermas: this is what inter-subjective dialogue REALLY looks like, utopian facades shoved aside.

Dialogical agreement, communicative reason, it all sounds nice... until one realizes that its impossible to wipe away the ongoing history of unbalanced power relations, violence (both symbolic and physical) and oppression... as well as the ontologies that follow therefrom.

[0neironaut]

The very fact that Denito cant simply

"debate person to person with habermas not through using your bullshit computer.i believe you cannot speak like that once you confront the person whom you are critiquing."

evidences the barring (or impotence) of 'the public' from engaging in any meaningful debate. This of course, aside from the purely symbolic act of voting... the illusion of choice, the illusion voice, the image of democracy.

ps. lol at mass media.

[w3ndz12]

that is one of the cause of immorality of our society, that individual like you knows no respect to the integrity of other person.what you are saying reflects your distorted 'self'.it's a pity that you haven't gone through self-reflection.you should be placed under the project of modernity or maybe because you are blinded by your ideology that leads you to astray.thus,don't critique if you yourself could not examine your life.'woe to those who never seen the light in their life.'

[denito9474]

"that is one of the cause of immorality of our society, that individual like you knows no respect to the integrity of other person"

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this. Are you upset because I was rude to Habermas?

[w3ndz12]

i'm neither upset nor irritated with what you've commented.but,the arising problem to your comment was lack of distinctions.well,i would never ask you anymore if what you are advocating is postmodernism.remember,man should use his rationality not to destruct but to construct ideas that would create effective society.

[MatIasWolff]

The final strike of Foucault on Habermas: Mitchell Dean's "Critical and effective histories"... Fuck the habermasian enlightment, fuck the public sphere. Long life to the critique of the present and the genalogie of the past!!

[nakedpower]

ps what do you think of governmentality?

[nakedpower]

Great bag you got going. Entirely entertaining while maintaining good substance.

"fuckking habermas....what the fuck" haha

I don't know enough habermas to agree or disagree with your thoughts, but I do know that you ironically break Foucault's only rule: no polemics.

[mjperen]

While I am not a Habermas supporter, I think you are being painfully reductive. You say some in intelligent things, but in all fairness, you are using a two page excerpt as justification for him to suck your balls. If you look into his work in communicative reason you'll see an intelligent, linguistic based foundation on "transcending the limits" you were so passionately talking about. fuck you

[TenduYou]

It gets all a bit depressing after awhile, doesn't it? The problem of agency and subjectivity, that is. It's interesting, though, to see an analysis of two philosophers in which Foucault is considered the optimist.

[phillysteaks14]

Yes but I think Habermas can illuminate Foucault's arguments ... Habermas may be wrong in one way, but an analysis of his frameworks through Foucault's frameworks reflect a lot of useful comparisons. But yes, I agree ... except I think you may have overlooked what Foucault inherently means when he says that power and knowledge are processes or attitudes.

[masbbo]

Yo. where is number 6 quotation from? i'd like to reference it in an essay.

cheers

[denito9474]

Michel Foucault, 'What is Enlightenment?' in The Essential Works of Foucault Vol 1: Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth, p. 319.

It's all in the sidebar

[masbbo]

sidebar?

[denito9474]

descrption box, maybe? Whatever you want to call it. The thing to the right of the video.

[masbbo]

found. thanks

[plenipotentiarius]

Do you confuse theory and action? Who is the "we" that question and transcend? Where do I go to hear the answer? Who then acts on the answer? Is it you and me on the mass media of global multinational youtube? When you answer this maybe you'll then sound like your nemesis. I hope it is not that you have sucked too long on the false rebellion of Rock music, Red Hot Chillis, U2 etc.?

[TenduYou]

Indeed, there is a schism that exists between what is epistemologically accessible and what is ontologically valid. The constant struggle to reconcile the accessible and the valid often forces philosophers back on themselves in ways that are antithetical to their own worldview. The trouble, however, is that constructing a sort of "invalidness" is necessary for purposive political action. This conundrum, I think, is the epitomizing feature of postmodern/postructuralist theory.

[plenipotentiarius]

Could you say that again, but this time without the jargon, I'm a little behind on the terms?

[MatIasWolff]

you're absolutely right... that's way habermas' thesis of de "cryptonormativism" in his essay on foucault it's nonsense. just the genealogie as method and the critique as ethos could generate a real "effective" history

[masbbo]

im a 'strait' male, but i find polemic, beared young men who talk sense incredibly sexy, anyone else agree...

denito9474 - forget jurgen, suck my balls!

On a more serious note, yes us young scholars do tend to love Micheal dont we, he seems to avdocate a spirit of experimentalism that excites the subversive mind. he can be faulted tho, have you read the order of things?

[masbbo]

You were intimidated by my sexual banter?

Goodness i didnt mean to upset you.

[idiothek]

hmm... and what are some of the practical ways in which we can take action and rid ourselves of this dystopia, as foucault would call it?

[denito9474]

/watch?v=mCPEBM5ol0Q

[idiothek]

you know, i have to admit that's an awesome idea. that video was great, thanks for the link.

[matrixcmitech]

i am not familiar with either habermas or foucault. from what you have outlined here i'd be more inclined to read foucault. thanks@@~!!@@

[ScientificDiscussion]

Hi Denito

I just ordered Foucault´s essential works Vol. 1-3, so I´ll read "What is Enlightenment" when it arrives. (Not until late December unfortunately) I´ll try to get "Truth and Justification" before then

I´ll make a video response

SD

[cloudmonkeys]

SUCK MY BALLS HABERMAS

[zorio]

This was great.

[0ThouArtThat0]

If YouTube is the public sphere, then does the public sphere as Habermas envisions it even exist? Are we having civilized, rational discourse here on YouTube? Maybe some of us are... but are we professional thinkers or amateurs? Maybe Habermas' bias is that he values adulthood (becoming established in the "real", already existing world) over youth (being dependent upon the imagination for construction of reality).

[0ThouArtThat0]

If there is an important postmodern critique of modernism, its that narratives of origin are constructive and mythological rather than factual. If this is true, then the concrete facts of empirical science and logical argument no longer have a foot to stand on, at least not one that would provide them with a coherent meaning. Facts have no meaning without a story to tell us what to do with them.

[0ThouArtThat0]

the Enlightenment's call for science and rationality rest on the same old anthropomorphic story about how Man has been given the world by God and ordered to master it.

We can't assume that human beings ought to be masters, or that such power is even desirable. Nor can we assume that such complete control over nature is possible in the first place.

[llod206]

you completely missed the mark on this one

[denito9474]

could you elaborate?

[rfarroc]

you don't understand habermas or foucault!

[2bsirius]

This debate is fascinating...I don't know how you could wade through so much of Habermas.

[cosabio]

I'll criticize anything, thank you. I find it personally enlightening. ;-)

Marxist fire sale! Act now! Limited time burnt offerings!

Great name for a rock banned:) Public Guardians of Rationality

[randyhelzerman]

Damn good video. If you will indulge me in a small anecdote about the mass media. On my first date with my current wife, I asked her what she did for a living, she said P.R. I said, cool, what are you going to do this week? (cont)

[randyhelzerman]

(cont) She said "Oh, I'm going to the PC Week to say X, I'm going to tell BusinessWeek to say Y, and I'm going to tell the Wall Street Journal to say Z." I thought to myself, well, this is cool.....so that week I kept my eye out, and sure enough... (cont)

[randyhelzerman]

(cont) PC Week indeed said X, BusinessWeek indeed said Y, and the Wall Street Journal indeed said Z :-) Its amazing the degree to which what masquarades as "news" and "journalism" is really just another advertising channel for large corporations.