In a Constant Limbo with Habermas: (late sunday post)

I just realized that I didn't post last night! I'm sorry for the lateness of this blog post! :/


Since I started studying for the second exam, I wanted to go back to Jurgen Habermas' notion of modernity not being truly fulfilled. Habermas' critique is on capitalism, materialism and how we are still in the here and now of modernity.

Habermas says, "the idea of being 'modern' . . . changed with the belief, inspired by modern science, in the infinite progress of knowledge . . ." (99). 

I find this quote to be rather interesting to Habermas' argument because he is saying that because of modernity we have progressed in knowledge and our society has truly changed. But have we really changed all that much? We are under the impression that our society has been "enlightened" in so many areas, but sadly we have not changed that much. For example, America is still dealing with the issue of social and racial inequality. Yes, we do no approve of slavery anymore, but the amount of racial inequality that is embedded within American citizens is still present. Even though we don't have segregation or slaves anymore, doesn't mean we've changed that much as a society. We just have created new ways of dealing or getting away with things such as: police brutality and our incarceration system.

Habermas also discusses the loss of a historical reference and how we are paying for it now. Habermas says, "The relation between 'modern' and 'classical' has definitely lost a fixed historical reference" (99). Sadly, there is a loss of the past due to capitalism and materialism. This sounds very similar to Benjamin's argument in the rise of mechanical reproduction. Benjamin discusses how there is a lost of authenticity because of mechanical reproduction. We lose a type of aura to society because our society is so obsessed with this notion of the new.

If we can't touch back to our roots of history and from modernity, how will we ever know if modernity is complete? Habermas is uncomfortable with how things are being run because everyone now is so hypersensitive to everything. Our capitalistic culture is ruining our everyday virtues and conventions because there are all of these new obsessions. According to Habermas, we have a nostalgia for the past. If we don't go back and revisit the past, we may never know if modernity is truly complete. ~ So I guess for now we are all stuck in the limbo ~