Amy Allen – The end of progress

Shift from metaphysical (kingdom of ends, absolute knowing, communist utopia) towards
POSTmetaphysical in contemporary critical theories.

Social progress in Honneth and Habermas is still unidirectional and cumulative.

The decentering of perspectives in a modern evolved rationalized society is necessary in order

to make “considered judgments on issues of justice” (P.9). Particular perspectives are
undermined in benefit of wider (objectivistic, systemic) views of the world. Wouldn’t justice
need a particularistic source for the sole possibility of coming forth as a possibility?

Is Allen following the habermasian dictum of understanding the moral-political progress

separated from the technical-scientific one as the hallmark of modernity, reason why she
proceeds to discuss uniquely normativity for the purpose of decolonizing critical theory?

In the same movement we separate truth validity from normative validity we separate
modernity from myth.

Disenchantment happens when there’s a separation between truth validity

(knowledge/science) from normative validity (morality/politics).

The relatedness between historical progress and normativity blocks the decolonization of
critical theory.

Latour argues that modernity is never realized in its own terms as nature-culture; fact-value;
subject-object hybrids are still scattered throughout modernity. Should critical theory follow
the implications of the lack of the “great divide” in order to build decolonized critical theory?

The separation subject-object; nature-culture; sciencie-politics; US-THEM, undergrinds

imperialism.

__________________________Class forum contribution____________________________

As a way to tap into Allen’s book I thought it timely to go forth and imagine Habermas’s
dynamic of communicative action in an intercultural dialogue with Andean indigenous
conceptualizations. The problem with the dialogue is that Andean indigenous thought differs
at the ontological level with modern Western thought. Whereas for Habermas reason, among
other things, consists in the clear distinction between subject and object.

Another difference is the conception of time. Progress sets the movement of moral and
political realization in the future as a GOAL. An eschatological form (ascendant linearity) seems
to be the blueprint of modernity. As Brendan mentions citing Camus, barbarism becomes
unavoidable and a justified event for the ulterior articulation of an Enlightened stage. But I’d
say that in order to bring morality to the present we need to set the eschatological model
aside. And this is a postulate that multiple indigenous worldviews agree upon somehow, if I
may say. Morality can only happen now… In the present-at-hand (Heidegger) that comes forth
as the blurriness (and not the clear yes/no distinction (Allen, P.59)) of dichotomous
oppositions.

This leads me to think about the question on the dichotomous opposition that is laid by Allen,
in regards to Habermas’s theory of modernity, of whether social systems and the lifeworld
must coincide, and synchronize in order to avoid the vices that systems produce when left
unchecked by real societal needs? If such were the case, wouldn’t the conflation and not
decoupling of social systems and the lifeworld (Allen, P.60) be a sign of social evolution?
Wouldn’t social evolution ironically consist in the debunking of an entire ontological
framework? Could a critical-decolonial concern be the implications of the merger of the other
dichotomous opposition in Habermas’s conception of modernization and progress, the
dimensions of moral-political and technical-scientific progress?

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If such is the case, then that would

The fact that modernity is set as a goal speaks of the linear time schema that is working on
along and through both lifeworlds and systems, which make that time schema somewhat
connatural or dependent in certain practices of the lifeworld, think for example consumerism
in capitalist society.

The two conceptions of normative progress (backward looking and forward looking) is laid over
a linear time plane. What would be the implications of cyclical time schema?

“For a theory to be critical, it must be connected to the hope for some significantly better…
society” (P.12) Hope? Passiveness? –Inconformity should be the spirit of critical theory.

Critical theory avoids foundationalism by appealing to the fact that Europe has LEARNED. But
how does this avoid relativism if any society has its own learnings? If there is only one way to
learn, foundationalism pushes back in.

If everyone agrees with the impossibility of finding good in the hard decision of saving one
particular human instead of 5, of whichever number, because of an inherent sensation of
repulsion towards the proxy or direct act of killing, then the idea of progress is completely
erred, as no matter what quantity of people are able to age until 80+ years old, eat healthy
organic food and enjoy lots of leisure time. The well-being of a few will never compensate the
misfortune of the many. Moreover, while it might be true that there are more happy people
now than then, it is also true that the magnitude of precarious life has multiplied as never
before too. We may say that humanity and life itself have never suffered as they suffer today,
in history and pre-history.

If backward-looking conception of progress as a “fact” and a yield of a learning process takes in

account that such learning had as a material condition the enslavement of the world, THEN it
serves as an ideological function to rationalize and legitimize contemporary forms of
oppression.

“In other words, at its core this developmental reading of history was based on what I would
call a kind of normative decisionism by means of which Native Americans were first judged to
be inferior –more primitive, less civilized, less developed- Europeans and then, in a second
step, that inferiority was explained by means of a developmental or stadial theory of history.”
(P.20)

“The post- or decolonial version of this criticism raises the particular worry that the very idea
of progress or of a developmental reading of history is grounded in a normative decisionism
by means of which European Enlightenment theorists congratulated themselves on being
more civilized, developed and advanced than Native Americans and other colonized subjects,
and then embedded this self-congratulatory assumption into the sociological theories of
modernization to which contemporary critical theorists, in turn, appeal to support their
claims about progress.” (P.22)

“…developmental or progressive reading of history… is the central target of post- and

decolonial critique.” (P. 24)

Which are the grounds for understanding posttraditional hyperreflexive discourses as superior
to traditional ones? The fact that a posttraditional discourse understands itself as one among
many others does not display superiority by itself. Traditional discourses may be able to do a
better job in attaining justice. The inherent value of posttraditional discourses rests on a
‘negative solipsism’, that resolves itself through the paradigm of objectivity in sciences.
Posttraditional discourses may say that “we are not alone, but we are the best…”. “…judge
traditional forms of life to be inadequate and inferior to ours insofar as they do no regard
themselves as simply one point of view among others.” (P. 29)

Backward looking conception of progress (as fact) must be disentangled from forward looking
conception of time.

The moral-practical development is brought by a process of increasing rationalization in the

domain of communicative action. Decentering of worldviews=heightening of reflexivity, which
implies demarcation between subjective, objective natures and intersubjectivity of linguistic
reality.

Moral-practical rationalization can happen outside power or force relations that distort
communication usually within traditional schemas for discourse. Isn’t this romantic and naïve?

What is the point of “reconstructing” developmental stages of social evolution through

universal and invariant logic if it is historically contingent whether societies follow and
actually develop such stages? If there is multilinearity in the articulation of historically
contingent developmental stages of society, what guarantees that those lines ought to meet
again, and moreover, if they do meet, what guarantees that they have actually evolved?

Technical-scientific progress—truth propositions

Moral-practical progress—rightness propositions

Both are measured against the CRITERION OF UNIVERSAL VALIDITY CLAIM.

“Theoretical discourse for the adjudication of truth claims, practical discourse for adjudication

of normative claims.” (P. 53)

COMUNICATIVE RATIONALITY give reasons in defense of validity claims.

Mythical worldviews fail to differentiate the three kinds of validity claims and the three types
of world and to recognize themselves as worldviews among others.
“Habermas draws from his review of the rationality/relativism debate: namely, that what is
distinctive of modern West is not scientific rationality per se but rather the hypostatization
thereof.” (P. 55)

Asdasdasd a as das dlka asl dkasl lask dalskd al alsk dlaks dalskd asl ldaks dlaksd al l aslkd
alskals dalskd al
Habermas rationality four components: “There are four core components to Habermas’s
conception of rationality: first, the three formal world concepts (objective, intersubjective and
subjective); second, the corresponding validity claims (truth, normative rightness and
sincerity); third, the concept of rationally motivated agreement; and forth, the concept of
reaching understanding through speech.” (P. 57)

Rationalization of knowledge: “…replacement of sacred knowledge with knowledge based on

the rational adjudication of validity claims, the separation of law from morality and the
universalization of both…” (P.59)

Modernity’s pathologies are not due to the rationalization of the lifeworld, rather are due to
the interaction between system perspectives and the lifeworld.

“Social evolution consists not only in the increasing rationalization and internal differentiation
of the lifeworld and the increasing complexity and internal differentiation of social systems; it
also consists in a decoupling of system from lifeworld. This decoupling leads to an “irresistible
irony of the world-historical process of enlightenment”: “the rationalization of the lifeworld
makes possible a heightening of systemic complexity which becomes so hypertrophied that it
unleashes system imperatives that burst the capacity of the lifeworld they instrumentalize
(TCA2, 155).” “The rationalization of the lifeworld makes possible the emergence and growth
of subsystems whose independent imperatives turn back destructively upon the lifeworld
itself” (TCA2, 186).”

The universality of habermas’ cocept of communicative rationality rests on its possibility to

solve problems that arise in the development of societies, i.e., the bursts that systemic
imperatives impose to the lifeworld in the process of their decoupling.

The preconditions of argumentation are exchanges of reasons through validity claims, which
scaffold justifications and ultimately approval.

Reformulated categorical imperative by Habermas (D): “Only those norms can claim to be valid
that meet (or could meet) with the approval of all affected in their capacity as participants in a
practical discourse” (P. 61) and the derived moral principle, the principle of universalization
(U). “(U) states that norm is valid in and only if “all affected can accept the consequences and
the side effects its general observance can be anticipated to have for the satisfaction of
everyone’s interests.”

“The discourse principle provides an answer to the predicament in which the members of any
moral community find themselves when, in making the transition to a modern, pluralistic
society, the find themselves faced with the dilemma that though they still argue with reasons
about moral judgements and beliefs, their substantive background consensus on the
underlying moral norms has been shattered (IO, 39).” (P. 63) This presupposes the
incompatibility between traditional consensus and practical reason. Traditions may have as a
source some practicity, especially when talking about production and technology, obviously
not when tradition is an instance of domination or oppression.

(D) and (U) can always be pointed out as Eurocentric inasmuch (D) relies in reason and validity
—in contrast to power/force biased traditional worldviews—which is a trait, according to
Habermas, of a posttraditional, modern society. This underpins Habermas’s theory of
modernity as contextualist.
The contribution of “universal epistemological resources” brought by Europe, in spite of
yielding “rationality” in various spheres of social systems (control of nature, bureaucratic
power, capitalist economies, etc.) and therefore “civilization” to the world, this order or
status-quo is the continuation of events that brought reason to existence: domination,
oppression and colonization. As such, this order requires the fulfilment of the imperatives that
the instituted social systems impose: the continuation of domination and neo-colonialization
of the peripheries.

COMMENT: The so called “indubitable” instances of historical progress can easily be

questioned by the scandalous ways in which Latin American countries have instituted such
instantiations in a formal way, but which completely fail to fulfil the purpose of their
institution. Bureaucracy often can be anything but instrumental, positive law is blatantly
stepped over, phenomena that speak of the contingency of rational morality.