Critical Theory: Other Perspectives

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Critical Theory Other Perspectives

• Womens tastes and proletarian tastes are
  similar not because women are proletarian or
  because the proletariat is feminine, but because
  both are disempowered classes
• Jonathan Fiske, Understanding Popular Culture, 47.

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Whats critical about Critical Theory?

• Theme of Nancy Frasers paper a critique of
  Habermas analysis of contemporary liberal
  welfare society. She criticizes his model for
  being blind to the significance and operation of
  gender (283).

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Key terms in Habermas model

• Material vs. Symbolic reproduction of society
• Natural Kind vs. pragmatic-contextualist
  interpretation
• System Integrated vs. Socially Integrated social
  action
• System vs. Life-world

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Whats critical about Critical Theory?

• Fraser endorses Marxs definition of Critical
  Theory as the self clarification of the
  struggles and wishes of the age (272)
• In her view, this view of Critical Theory commits
  its practitioners to treat all social
  theoriescritical and non-criticalalike from the
  point of view of justification subject both to
  critique.

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Critical Theory and Gender

• In the context of the subordination of women in
  society, critical theory would seek to shed
  light on the character and bases of such
  sub-ordination. It would employ categories and
  explanatory models that revealed rather than
  occluded relations of male dominance and female
  subordination. And it would demystify as
  ideological any rival approaches that obfuscated
  or rationalized these relations (272).
• Habermas analyses of liberal welfare society is
  flawed for being virtually silent on gender
  issues.

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Habermas model

• Recall the key terms
• Material vs. Symbolic reproduction of society
• Natural Kind vs. pragmatic-contextualist
  interpretation
• System Integrated vs. Socially Integrated social
  action
• System vs. Life-world

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Material vs. Symbolic reproduction of society

• Material production of society production of
  material goods for the preservation of
  individuals
• Symbolic production of society reproduction of
  the cultural traditions by maintaining and
  transmitting the linguistically elaborated norms
  and patterns of interpretation that are
  constitutive of social identities to new
  membersi.e. socialization of the young and the
  forging of solidarity among individuals

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Material vs. Symbolic reproduction of society

• Material reproduction include paid work since
  that is social labour necessary for the
  maintenance of society
• Symbolic reproduction include childrearing
  activities and unpaid domestic work because they
  are constitutive of socializing the young and may
  even serve to forge solidarity among individuals.

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Material vs. Symbolic reproduction of society

• According to Fraser, the distinction between the
  material and symbolic can be interpreted in two
  ways Natural Kinds vs. Pragmatic-contextualist
• What are natural kinds? What connotations does
  the term natural kind evoke?
• Natural kind suggests permanence.
• If the natural kind interpretation is right,
  then it could be potentially ideological because
  it would institutionalize the separation of
  childrearing from paid work.

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Material vs. Symbolic reproduction of society

• Fraser argues that childrearing activities do not
  just serve the symbolic reproduction of society.
• How do child-rearing activities serve the
  material reproduction of society?
• They ensure the biological survival of the young.
  Childrearing activities reflect both material and
  symbolic reproduction of society

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Material vs. Symbolic reproduction of society

• What about paid work is it merely just material
  reproduction of society?
• No. Social mores are introduced as well as
  identities are forged in these activities.
• Examplewhat goes on at work?
• Both material and symbolic reproduction are not
  pure processes but rather involve dual aspects

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System Integrated vs. Socially Integrated social
action

• Socially Integrated social action are those in
  which actors coordinate their actions with one
  another by reference to some form of explicit or
  implicit intersubjective consensus about norms,
  values, and consensus (275).
• Socially Integrated social actions are those that
  reference consensual norms

• System Integrated social action are those social
  actions in which individuals are motivated by
  self-interested, utility-maximizing
  calculations (ibid)
• System Integrated social actions are those that
  reference strategic interactionprimarily in the
  media of money and power.

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System Integrated vs. Socially Integrated social
action

• Is the distinction between System Integrated vs.
  Socially Integrated social action absolute?
• No. Because some (if not most) socially
  integrated social actions, those aimed at
  consensus, contain strategic calculations.
• Exampleparent/child or teacher/student
  interactions.
• What about system integrated social action?
• Such social actions take place against the
  context of shared meanings, such as basic rules

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System Integrated vs. Socially Integrated social
action

• The absolute difference view of the two kinds
  of social action is potentially ideological
  because in exaggerating the differences (and
  overlooking the similarities) it can lead to the
  rigid opposition between two spheres roughly,
  the economic and family spheres.
• This is borne out in Habermas model of the
  institutional structure of modern societies.

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Habermas model of modern liberal societies

• Habermas notes modern societies split off
  material production functions from symbolic
  production ones. These functions are housed in
  different institutions
• Material the official economy and the state,
  which cater to system integrated social actions
• Symbolic the private (nuclear family) and the
  public spheres, which focus on socially
  integrated social actions.

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Habermas model System vs. Lifeworld

• Habermas distinguishes between system and
  lifeworld
• By system, he means the official economy and the
  state
• By lifeworld, he means those social domains
  specializing in socialization, solidarity
  formation and cultural transmission (277)i.e.
  the realm of interpersonal relationships against
  the broadest background

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Habermas model Public vs. Private

• Combining the public and private distinction
  together with the distinction between System and
  Lifeworld yields

Public (mediated by citizen) Private (mediated by consumer)
System State Official Economy
Lifeworld Public Sphere Private Sphere (nuclear family)
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Frasers critique of Habermas (Part I)

• Habermas model is blind to the gendered subtext
  involved in modelling the relationship between
  system and lifeworld.
• Consider the role of the worker in traditional
  capitalist economy. Is it gendered?
• Yes. The idea of a work force is masculine.
• But women are workers as well. However in what
  sectors do they work?
• Furthermore there is no mention of womens unpaid
  work at home sustaining the work force

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Consumers and Citizens

• Consider the idea of the citizen which mediates
  the public sphere between System and Lifeworld.
  Is the idea of citizen gendered?
• Again it would appear that it is gendered. Is the
  voter male/female? Does the public sphere welcome
  womens voices?

• Consider the idea of the consumer which
  mediates the private sphere between System and
  Lifeworld. Is the idea of consumer gendered?
• Fraser claims it is because it is typically women
  who is responsible for purchasing the goods and
  services for domestic consumption.

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Frasers critique of Habermas (Part II)

• Habermas modifies his analysis of contemporary
  society in light of the fact the situation is one
  of liberal welfare state and not capitalist
  production.
• For Habermas, the social welfare rights have the
  perverse consequence of reducing the role of the
  citizen to that of a client.
• Other gains under the liberal welfare system
  allows for further colonization of the Lifeworld
  by the State (System). Here think about education
  and health care the norms and expectations of
  the State now permeate the domestic sphere.

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Frasers critique of Habermas (Part II)

• Fraser notes that here again Habermas fails to
  take note the male-dominated, patriarchal
  character of liberal welfare economic and
  administrative systems.
• These welfare economic and administrative systems
  are instruments for womens subordination.
• Fraser notes there is a difference between social
  programs, between masculine (Employment
  Insurance) and feminine (Family Welfare for
  defective households).

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Feminist critical theory

• What is needed for critical theory to include
  women?
• A more sensitive framework which (a) does not
  consider the worker (or citizen) and childrearer
  as different in kind, and (b) the causal
  influence does not run one-way from the economy
  to the family