Critical Theory

1
Critical Theory

• Why critical theory? Critical of what?
• Current social conditions
• Standard social science

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Institute for Social Research (Frankfurt
School)

• Established in 1921
• Foci Marxist studies and problem of
  anti-Semitism
• Exile Institute at Columbia U.

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Interests of Critical Theorists

• Critical Marxism
• Alienation and domination
• False consciousness of proletariat

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Major Ideas of Critical Theorists

• Subjective vs. objective reason
• Rejection of positivism
• Social analysis for social emancipation
• Role of consumption in modern society
• Concept of reification

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Major Ideas of Critical Theorists

• Influence of Freud
• social unconscious
• concept of repression
• role of family in reproduction of class structure
• Stages of capitalism
• Interest in culture

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Major Ideas of Critical Theorists

• Herbert Marcuse
• surplus repression and the great refusal
• sexual liberation as path to social emancipation

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Critique of Critical Theory

• Orthodox Marxist view attention to culture is
  distraction should stay focused on economic
  issues
• Critical theorists base/superstructure model is
  flawed economy and culture are deeply
  interconnected

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Jürgen Habermas (1929- )

• Grew up under Nazism
• Graduate work in philosophy
• Main focus transform critical theory into
  positive approach
• Interest in language and communication
• Distorted communication
• Undistorted communication

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Habermas

• Weberian concern with penetration of instrumental
  rationality into all areas of social life
• Solution ideal speech situation
• Characteristics
• Open to all
• Equal rights of expression
• Rationality will prevail

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Habermas

• Public sphere realm of deliberation, situated
  between economy and state (civil society)
• Decline of public sphere in late capitalism
• Example rise of media conglomerates

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Critiques of Habermas

• Assumptions about human nature and motivations
• Ideal speech situation is utopian
• Postmodern critique misplaced faith in
  rationality

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Habermass Vision of Future

• Optimism (cf. Marx)
• Contrast to Weber, other critical theorists

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What Does a Crisis Mean Today? Legitimation
Problems in Late Capitalism

• Question Is capitalism still threatened by
  crisis?
• Features of late capitalism
• Economic competition replaced by oligarchies
• State intervention in economy
• Legitimation system (formal democracy w/o real
  participation)
• Traditional classes less important

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What Does a Crisis Mean Today? Legitimation
Problems in Late Capitalism

• 3 global crises of late capitalism
• Environmental crisis
• Alienation
• Nuclear annihilation
• Role of state and possible crisis
• Output crisis (efficiency crisis)
• Input crisis (legitimation crisis)

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What Does a Crisis Mean Today? Legitimation
Problems in Late Capitalism

• Role of culture
• Cultural traditions made relative and political
• Colonization of the lifeworld ? alienation
• Declining sense of meaning

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What Does a Crisis Mean Today? Legitimation
Problems in Late Capitalism

• Motivation crisis
• Declining belief in performance ideology
• Vague individual preferences
• Declining importance of exchange value
  orientation
• Main point crisis still inherent in capitalism,
  takes a new form under late capitalism

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In-Class Writing

• According to Dandaneau, why didnt the
  deindustrialization of Flint in the 1970s and
  1980s result in a worker uprising?
• (Think about Habermass ideas about late
  capitalism and how it differs from the kind of
  capitalism Marx wrote about.)

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Discussion of Roger Me

• Reification and false consciousness
• Ideological framing of deindustrialization by
  those aligned with power
• Economic problems displaced into the
  political/governmental sphere
• Motivation crisis
• Colonization of the lifeworld (see Dandaneau pp.
  243-9)