CRITICAL THEORIES

CRITICAL THEORIES Dr. Mrs. Anisa Mujawar

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

Institute for Social Research (“Frankfurt School”) • Established in 1921 • Marxist studies and problem of anti-Semitism

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

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

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

Major Ideas of Critical Theorists • Herbert Marcuse • surplus repression and the “great refusal” • sexual liberation as path to social emancipation

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

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

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

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

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

Habermas’s Vision of Future • Optimism (cf. Marx) • Contrast to Weber, other critical theorists

“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

“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)

“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

“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

In-Class Writing According to Dandaneau, why didn’t the deindustrialization of Flint in the 1970s and 1980s result in a worker uprising? (Think about Habermas’s ideas about late capitalism and how it differs from the kind of capitalism Marx wrote about.)

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

CRITICAL THEORIES