Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Kemis and Habermas
Regarding Kemis's "Good Citizen" and Habermas's ideal of the public spere, I think they have alot in common. The examples of the public sphere that Kemis gave looked alot like Habermas's ideal, a space where anyone could come, have their opinions heard (and those opinions would matter), and could evoke change. However, our group in class was debating (politely of course!)whether or not the two were "synonymous". We felt like the public sphere is now more of a place where you do often "self-abstract", but in Kemis's "Good Citizen" the faces and personal stories of those citizens who are changing their cities and communities are important. They have to be physically a part of the community to evoke change in their public spaces. However, citizens do in a way, have to "self-abstract" from their own biases, in order to come together and make strides towards solving the issues their cities face. Both sides have to come together and meet in the middle. This requires a more mild form of self-abstracting. A self-abstraction from the personal need to argue, to be "right, and ultimately "win".
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I do not think that a person can mildly self-abstract themselves from a piece. To say that someone is capable of doing so is a bit misleading. Can we fully say that I, being who I am, can take part of myself out of the equation and leave only a partially hollow person there is, in my opinion, wrong. Maybe people need to try to be less bias toward a come goal, but again, when one is passionate about a particular subject matter that is when the "gloves come off" and we see biases and other things manifest themselves in public sphere.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say that mildly self-abstracting from oneself isn't possible. I think people do it all the time and that allows for some sense of tolerance. For instance, I'm a Christian. That is a huge part of who I am, and when I enter a dialogue with someone who isn't of the same faith as me, I mildly self-abstract. I have to set myself somewhat away from “myself” simply to go into the conversation with a more open-mind, as to where my own beliefs wouldn't be used to defile someone else’s, simply because I believe they're right. If you go into a conversation with guns a blarin' and your ears clogged by your own beliefs and opinions, solving issues will become a battle that no side will ever win because winning shouldn’t be the goal. When you can semi-self-abstract from your own biased ideas and opinions I think winning becomes less of an issue.
ReplyDeleteYes, to a certain degree I concur with your assertion, but I would have to say that not all of it I agree with. The fact that I am a Christian person who is often times placed in a position that causes me to set religion aside for a moment and to just view the facts as objective rather than subjective. But if you're arguing, for instance, something simple as prop 19 setting religion aside, what other biases would you have that would cause you to not to be able to communicate your point with no biases. You can still be as productive with your argument, with a complete self-abstraction. I agree, to a certain extent, that people will not be able to completely self-abstract but the more that we take out of the public sphere the better. Although, at times, if would seem, that the more someone identifies themselves within the public sphere the more believable the person becomes. Moreover, hypothetically, if I were someone reviewing someone's blog, I would want them to be as out of the blog as possible.
ReplyDeleteYes, absolutely you can't self-abstract completely. I agree with you there for sure...that's impossible. Other biases will always come into play. All I'm saying is that in some instances, especially when concerning "solving issues" there are certain idealogies or opinions that would be benificial to self-abstract from, simply to find common ground and get actual work done. If people never self-abstracted when it came to solving issues, there would just be arguements and no actions actually taken.
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