Mamta Kalia

c) Nihilism- to Baudrillard, the
masses would become so numbed
by media bombardment that they
can no longer be indoctrinated.
Similary, Habermas distinguishes
between three different conservative
positions:
a) The ‘ pre-modernism’ of the ‘old
conservatives’- e.g. F.R. Leavis.
b) ‘anti-modernism’ of the ‘young
conservatives’ (Foucault,
Derrida).
c) ‘post-modernism’ of ‘neoconservatives’
(Daniel Bell).
The neo-conservatives accept the
finality of the separation of the spheres
of science, morality and art from each
other and also from the ‘life-world’ (to
use Habermas’, terms). Thus their
functional rationality is at the cost of
morality in the social organisation
(politics)- and this position cannot be
acceptable theoretically and practically.
In the long post-modern debate,
Habermas and Jameson took part for
traditional left, Baudrillard for radical
left, and Lyotard and Rorty for
domesticated post- modernism.
Habermas defended the still unrealised
potential of the enlightenment but finds
monolithic rationality as the cause of
the ills of modernity, hence pleads for
the communicative reason (‘Theory of
Communicative Action’, 1981). To
Habermas, there is a problem of three
‘cultural value spaces’ that Max Weber
distinguished- the theoretical (science),
74 :: April-June 2010
the practical (morality) and the aesthetic
(art); and due to specific innerlogic of
each, these cannot be reconciled. These
have different forms of augmentationempirical-
theoretical discourse, moral
discourse and aesthetic discourse-
Habermas calls these as ‘rational
complexes’ which have become exclusive
coteries of experts, hence instead of
enriching daily life (as enlightenment
expected) these have distanced
themselves from ‘the life world’. Further,
under ‘capitalist modernisation’ the
empirical-theoretical or congnitiveinstrumental
rationality complex (meansend
rationalism) has dominated and
marginalised other modes of knowing.
Therefore, in Habermas’ view, it cannot
be modernity. Further Habermas gives
language a central place. Habermas moves
from modernistic, subjectivistic
‘philosophy of consciousness’ to a
‘philosophy of inter-subjectivity’- i.e. of
‘ communication and consensus’. This
inter-subjectivity is all – inclusive and
brings ‘ultimate consensus’, enabled by
communicative reason- thus antirepresentation
would be emancipatory.
Criticising Habermas, however Lyotard
observes that since consensus is only
‘a particular state of discussion, not its
end’, political emancipation may be
realised through dissensus, not
consensus. Actually, to him, consensus
is the end of freedom and thought while
dissensus allows us to have freedom and
to think- that is, to extend our
possibilities. Thus, unlike Habermas, for
Lyotard emancipation depends on the