Continuing on Jürgen Habermas's “Actions, Speech Acts, Linguistically Mediated Interactions, and the Lifeworld" (1998), with guest John Foster. We get into the details about the validity claims that are inherent in speech: When I make an assertion, I'm not just uttering a fact without context, but am (ordinarily, like not if I'm saying this in the context of playing a part Continue Reading …
Ep. 252: Habermas on Communication as Sociality (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode, or listen to a preview. Citizens can get the entire second part here. On Jürgen Habermas' "Actions, Speech Acts, Linguistically Mediated Interactions, and the Lifeworld" (1998), with guest John Foster. What's the relation between individuals and society? Habermas says it's language. But don't picture this as fully formed but isolated Continue Reading …
Ep. 252: Habermas on Communication as Sociality (Part One for Supporters)
On Jürgen Habermas' “Actions, Speech Acts, Linguistically Mediated Interactions, and the Lifeworld" (1998), with guest John Foster. What's the relation between individuals and society? Habermas says it's language. But don't picture this as fully formed but isolated animal individuals that then acquire language and thereby come together to form a society. Rather, what Continue Reading …
Ep. 237: Walter Benjamin Analyzes Violence (Part Two)
Continuing on Benjamin's "Critique of Violence" (1921). Mark, Wes, and Seth keep trying to figure out this difficult essay. Is Benjamin really advocating a workers' revolution to end the state, or just reflecting on a hypothetical to explore the limits of the concept of violence? According to Judith Butler's interpretation of the essay, the takeaway is the alternative to Continue Reading …
Ep. 237: Walter Benjamin Analyzes Violence (Part One)
On Benjamin's "Critique of Violence" (1921). What is violence? Walter Benjamin (pronounced "Ben-Ya-Meen") breaks down the phenomenon into four types and then shows why these are not really distinct after all. First, any state is always established, he says, through at least some violent acts, so this is law-making violence. Not only does one group subdue another, but then Continue Reading …
Ep. 237: Walter Benjamin Analyzes Violence (Citizen Edition)
On Benjamin's "Critique of Violence" (1921). What is violence? Walter Benjamin (pronounced "Ben-Ya-Meen") breaks down the phenomenon into four types and then shows why these are not really distinct after all. First, any state is always established, he says, through at least some violent acts, so this is law-making violence. Not only does one group subdue another, but then Continue Reading …
Episode 136: Adorno on the Culture Industry
On Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" from Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944), plus Adorno's essay "Culture Industry Reconsidered" (1963). How does the entertainment industry affect us? Adorno and Horkheimer (who co-authored the book, but it looks like Adorno mainly wrote the essay we read) are founding figures of the Continue Reading …
Ep. 136: Adorno on the Culture Industry (Citizen Edition)
On Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" from Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944), plus Adorno's essay "Culture Industry Reconsidered" (1963). How does the entertainment industry affect us? Adorno and Horkheimer (who co-authored the book, but it looks like Adorno mainly wrote the essay we read) are founding figures of the Continue Reading …
Episode 133: Erich Fromm on Love as an Art
On Fromm's The Art of Loving (1956). A Valentine's Day special topic! What is love, really? This psychoanalyst of the Frankfurt school thinks that real love is not something one "falls" into, but is an art, an activity, and doing it well requires a disciplined openness and psychological health. Love is the answer to the deep human need to rid ourself of isolation, but a mere Continue Reading …
Episode 133: Erich Fromm on Love as an Art (Citizen Edition)
On Fromm's The Art of Loving (1956). A Valentine's Day special topic! What is love, really? This psychoanalyst of the Frankfurt school thinks that real love is not something one "falls" into, but is an art, an activity, and doing it well requires a disciplined openness and psychological health. Love is the answer to the deep human need to rid ourself of isolation, but a mere Continue Reading …
Remediating Marcuse: Recovering Humanity through Aestheticized Technology
Of all the first-generation Frankfurt School writers, Herbert Marcuse offered the kind of Critical Theory most concerned with revolution. It should come as no surprise, then, that Marcuse generated condemnation from across the political spectrum. In his infamous memo to the US Chamber of Commerce, future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell Jr. warned of college campuses Continue Reading …