This unique work analyzes the crisis in modern society, building on the ideas of the Frankfurt School thinkers. Emphasizing social evolution and learning processes, it argues that crisis is mediated ...by social class conflicts and collective learning, the results of which are embodied in constitutional and public law. First, the work outlines a new categorical framework of critical theory in which it is conceived as a theory of crisis. It shows that the Marxist focus on economy and on class struggle is too narrow to deal with the range of social conflicts within modern society, and posits that a crisis of legitimization is at the core of all crises. It then discusses the dialectic of revolutionary and evolutionary developmental processes of modern society and its legal system. This volume in the Critical Theory and Contemporary Society by a leading scholar in the field provides a new approach to critical theory that will appeal to anyone studying political sociology, political theory, and law.
The truth potential of art is realized not only by great art (of educated elites) but also by the cultural industry that has become the art of the masses. Great art and cultural industry do not only ...contradict one another but often interpenetrate and overlap subversively. Especially in critical periods of crisis (and revolution) great art and cultural industry go together with political action. However, in more counterrevolutionary periods as nowadays post-truth democracy, Adorno's gloomiest interpretation of the cultural industry becomes topical again.
Rorty understands pragmatism in philosophy and social science, literature and art, to be intertwined with the political project of changing the world. Achieving Our Country, together with a lecture ...on the 150th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto, has become Rorty’s political testament. Rorty understands the leftist American project as the incomplete one of all those who fight for a classless society of boundless diversity (1). At the centre of Achieving Our Country is the tragic division between old and new, social and cultural Left (2). Rorty’s patriotism is progressive and cosmopolitan (3). The American project can only be realized if the Left breaks the hegemony of the political Right (4). For that, America must be understood as a utopia that makes itself the avant-garde of global political, economic, social and cultural change (5). This utopia can be realized only by a new kind of unity between leftist centres in the university and leftist organizational power in the rest of society. In this respect, America could become a model for the rest of the world again (6).
The democratic and social states of the EU (together with other OECD countries) have transformed capitalism. This was also due not only to national but also to the impressive advances of ...transnational constitutionalism. Great parts of the means of production have been socialised or partly socialised. Finally, the democratic and social states of Europe did not turn to socialism, but became a new formation of democracy with socialist characteristics, and that for the time being was the only formation of modern democracy that ever worked. However, democratic social welfare capitalism has suffered from two problems: secular stagnation and horizontal exclusion. Aggressive neoliberalism, politically and theoretically well prepared, took its chance and changed the direction of the evolution of world society. The last 40 years witnessed a great transformation from full-fledged market-controlling democracy to market-conforming post-democracy. However, in Europe, political alternatives between social and neoliberal models remained open until the establishment of a common currency without legislator and government, which had the unintended effect of excluding all alternatives to neoliberalism once it was established under the rule of competition law that became the substantial (factual) constitution of Europe. The global economic crisis of 2008 caused a state of permanent crises in Europe, which at present are managed by an ever more exceptional regime of technocrats and experts. It would seem that either democracy comes to an end in Europe and in all of its Member States or Europe becomes the first transnational regime that is not less but more democratic and social than its former Member States.
All the aspects and dimensions that can be rightfully identified as playing essential parts within the current tragedy of democracy do share a common reference point: the public sphere. In the ...absence of a public sphere, no political change can take place democratically. This introduction to the special issue, which continues the debate about the public sphere from a broadly understood critical theory perspective, tries to substantiate the two initial claims and briefly presents the line of argument inherent to this special issue and its contributions. The collected contributions intervene or elaborate on the following conceptional or practical problems within the nexus of democracy and the public sphere, such as the critical relations between cultural industry and post-truth democracy; the contested relationship between the public sphere and labour; epistemological challenges predating normative questions; the relevance and transformation of concrete constellations between speakers and listeners, fragmentation and polarization within the public sphere; communicative pathologies; the digitalization of communication; altered and threatened media system services to functioning democracies; displacement and commodification of communication; the need for new forms of techno-politics; problems and challenges of Open Access; and the potential transnationalization of the public sphere.
How can we understand long-term change in world politics better? Based on readings of thinkers as diverse as Habermas, Foucault and Luhmann, the authors of this book propose a framework for ...understanding such change in terms of social evolution. They show that processes of social learning and unlearning are key to understanding the long-term historical evolution of complex societies, and propose to approach these with the core concepts of autonomization, hierarchical complexity, and co-evolution. Three case studies illustrate this social evolutionary perspective to the study of world politics, examining the evolution of forms of organizing political authority, of conflicts, of diplomacy, of law as boundary condition.
Critical problems and pragmatist solutions Petersen, Felix; Brunkhorst, Hauke; Seeliger, Martin
Philosophy & social criticism,
12/2022, Letnik:
48, Številka:
10
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
In this special issue, we draw on pragmatist political and social theory and philosophy to illustrate the creative potential of this intellectual tradition for thinking about the numerous crises that ...haunt liberal democratic societies today. The introduction identifies five overlapping problem constellations (demise of public power, lasting consequences of inequality, pluralization of society, return of authoritarian practices and globalization of the world) that have driven the recent rise of undemocratic or authoritarian patterns of social organization and political rule. Against this backdrop, we conclude that the revitalization of certain dimensions of liberal democracy will not suffice to overcome these problems, which means that democratic practices need radical rethinking and reconceptualization. For this intellectual and political endeavour, we argue, pragmatism provides a suitable framework to identify problems that require resolution and define and mobilize collective problem solving capacities from already existing practices. All eight contributions to this special issue draw on pragmatist political and social theory and philosophy to illustrate to what extent, and to what ends, this intellectual tradition can revitalize the political and social discourse on the past, present and future of democracy. The articles are organized in two sections: (1) Pragmatist critique and the critical potential of pragmatism, (2) pragmatist politics and theories of democratic practice.
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