You wrote,
>Habermas has been criticized for moving towards analyses that are directed
>towards "people in general" rather than to a specific group or class, to a
>general interest rather than specific interests, and for to failing to
>identify any "agent of social transformation." One might say, in other
>words, for writing in a typical academic genre.
I like this methodological move but for me it's not enough. I think
Habermas is right noticing a tendency of mainstream social sciences (and
politics) to talk about "people in general." As Marx suspected that when
people (in general) try to justify actions by "society's interests" (in
general) they try to smuggle some particular group or personal interests.
What I don't like is replacing one methodological hegemony of talking about
"people in general" by another methodological hegemony of talking about
"groups, classes, genders, ethnicities, cultures, identities" existing "out
there." In both cases, there is an assumption (which I consider as wrong
one) that there is a set of rules that if you follow them will lead you to
the truth or at least to fairness and good. I'm personally sick and tired
of the fashionable journal requirements to report bureaucratic features of
the studied groups such SES, gender, ethnicity, race, and so on (fortunately
IQ is dropped from the requirements). I call the features "bureaucratic"
because they mainly derived from political management of the populous. If
the next US census survey includes "mixed race" category, expect the
journals to follow. Paraphrasing Nietzche, I think that methodological
rules are, at best, a temporary break (rest) in negotiations of meaning and,
at worst, an imposition of the reign on a (temporarily) defeated party/ies
in science wars.
In other words, 'analyses that are directed towards "people in general"' are
can be OK under certain circumstances that are unique and specific by
themselves. The notion of "being OK" is itself negotiable but neither
relative nor arbitrary. I think it is important to focus on "who is talking
to whom about what and for what purpose." Let methodological genre to fly
freely.
In other words, I argue for freedom of methodological genre. If a
traditional cognitive research wants to use 'analyses that are directed
towards "people in general"' let them do that. Do not require them to
report specificity of their target group which does not preclude you to
criticism of their position, paradigm, and ideology. Do not force them to
mask their genre and ideology by new PC protective labels. If research
believes in the central information processor as the core of the mind why he
(really she) should report that his research participants were college
middle-class undergraduates. Why to force to pollute his poetics of
research genre? If you think that gender is matter show it yourself. Let's
relevance and meaning rule for us and other opponents rather than imposed
rules... (ha-ha, dream on)...
What do you think?
Eugene
PS I do not want to suggest that either Martin or Habermas what to impose a
new methodology on the field. But sometimes the discourse about
methodological alternatives turns or sounds about how to do research (the
best way). This discourse is fully consistent with the mainstream paradigm
of traditional sciences. However, "we" may want to develop another one --
this is what, I guess, we (xmca-ers in general) are sometimes painfully and
sometimes enthusiastically doing. Can we succeed without changing
institutions we live? I doubt....