Communicative Action: The Logos Interviews (Logos: Perspectives on Modern Society and Culture)

224 Pages·2010·0.75 MB·English

by  Amy L. Buzby

Communicative Action
Logos
Perspectives on Modern Society and Culture
Michael J. Thompson, Series Editor
The books in the Logos series examine modern society, politics and culture,
emphasizing the connections between these spheres rather than their aca-
demic separateness. Skeptical of what current intellectual trends call “inter-
disciplinary,” titles in this series explore the ways that politics, economics,
and culture inform one another, overlap, and weave the complex fabric of
modern life in a global context. By putting forth bold ideas written to appeal
to a broad range of interests, the series situates itself within the long tradition
of intelligent social critique.
Islam and the West
Critical Perspectives on Modernity
Edited by Michael J. Thompson
Maverick Voices
Conversations with Political and Cultural Rebels
Edited by Kurt Jacobsen
Planetary Politics
Human Rights, Terror, and Global Society
Edited by Stephen Eric Bronner
Communicative Action
The Logos Interviews
Edited by Amy L. Buzby
Communicative Action
The Logos Interviews
Edited by Amy L. Buzby
LEXINGTON BOOKS
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Published by Lexington Books
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Copyright © 2010 by Lexington Books
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Communicative action : the Logos interviews / edited by Amy L. Buzby.
p. cm. — (Logos : perspectives on modern society and culture)
ISBN 978-0-7391-3974-5 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7391-3975-2 (pbk. : alk.
paper) — ISBN 978-0-7391-3976-9 (electronic)
1. Politics and culture. 2. Imperialism. 3. Neoliberalism—United States. 4. Middle
East—Politics and government—21st century. 5. United States—Foreign relations—
Middle East. 6. Middle East—Foreign relations—United States. I. Buzby, Amy L.,
1984– II. Logos (Rowman and Littlefield, Inc.)
JA75.7.C64 2010
306.2—dc22 2009051169
(cid:2) ™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Preface vii
Introduction 1
SECTION I: THE DECLINING STATE OF POLITICS
AND CULTURE
An Interview with Benjamin Barber 15
An Interview with Studs Terkel 27
An Interview with Frances Fox Piven 37
SECTION II: THE RISE OF NEO-LIBERALISM,
IMPERIALISM, AND AMERICAN HEGEMONY
An Interview with Cornel West 49
An Interview with Daniel Ellsberg 65
An Interview with Jürgen Habermas 79
An Interview with David Harvey 99
An Interview with Benny Morris 107
SECTION III: CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE EAST
An Interview with Rashid Khalidi 123
An Interview with Ilan Pappe 137
An Interview with Tariq Ali 145
An Interview between American and Iraqi Intellectuals 151
v
vi Contents
SECTION IV: ALTERNATIVE VISIONS AND
MODES OF RESISTANCE
An Interview with Saad Eddin Ibrahim 167
An Interview with Bianca Jagger 175
An Interview with Peter Singer 191
Sources 199
Index 201
About the Editor 211
About the Interviewees 213
Preface
I was elated when I was offered the opportunity to compose this volume
of interviews from the Logos journal. These interviews collectively offer
a unique and necessary vantage on the dilemmas and troubling tendencies
that mark our times. We now find ourselves at a critical juncture, faced with
familiar quandaries, but under the auspices of a new administration that has
opened the door to multilateral action and progressive change. It is my hope
that the challenges and insights offered within these interviews can make a
small contribution in improving the quality of our response to this moment of
opportunity. Many thanks are due to the team at Lexington Books. I would
also like to thank Michael J. Thompson and Stephen Eric Bronner, the editors
of Logos, for their guidance, assistance and support. My gratitude also goes
out to Joyce Lynch, Lawrence Baiada and Evan Grady-Troia, without whom
nothing is possible.
Amy Buzby
New Brunswick, 2009
vii
Introduction
Despite all of the recent reporting on and apprehension about pandemic
viruses, the most dangerous global diseases plaguing humanity today have
garnered scant attention in the Western world. Although most people quake
before the specter of H1N1 (which is just the latest in a long line of fearsome
viruses that have terrified the public), and tremble over the apocalyptic pre-
dictions of the massive fatalities it could cause, there is a general blindness
to the decay that already grips the modern subject at his core. It is the decline
of politics and culture, the disappearance of the vibrant public sphere neces-
sary to sustain democracy and the spread of American imperialism abroad
that ought to be foremost in our minds as we discuss the dangerous, and
potentially deadly, infections that imperil the world. These related afflictions
are, indeed, pandemics that, if left untreated, may well prove to be terminal.
Engaging these crises—and truly analyzing the historical, political and social
processes that have led society to its current state of aggressive atrophy—is
a deeply troubling and often uncomfortable task, but it is one that must be
undertaken if intelligent and effective responses to our times are to be devel-
oped and sustained. We must be willing to open ourselves and our times up to
thorough and, as Marx once urged, ruthless criticism if we wish to build new
progressive efforts able to produce meaningful change. Nothing less than full
and frank assessments grounded in a broad and rich understanding of current
global quandaries and their historical origins can aid us in this all-important
task. It is, therefore, with the intention of finding such a course of curatives
that the reader should approach the interviews contained in this volume.
Concerned political theorists like Marx, Nietzsche, Freud and the scholars
of the Frankfurt School have long noted the decline of politics and culture,
but in recent years the level of engagement, concern and capacity in modern
society seems to have reached a new nadir. The machinations of the culture
1
2 Introduction
industry, the tendency for all cultural innovations to be commodified and
transformed into a means of furthering the alienation of the masses first
noted by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, have steadily deepened the
public’s passive preference for quick, vapid, homogenized and ultimately
unsatisfying forms of entertainment. The capacity for culture to serve as a
vehicle for criticism, to develop fresh and cutting methods and to allow in-
dividuals to meaningfully imagine otherwise is continuously constricted and
undermined. Because the static output of the culture industry offers nothing
new, and contains no genuine depth, furthermore, most consumers of culture
come to feel a pervasive and aggravating boredom. Perhaps nothing shows
the dulled and violent character of modern culture more clearly than the mass
fixation with apocalyptic visions of the end of the world that recur constantly
in horror and disaster movies. When nothing is left to make life appealing,
indeed, the only viable means to imagine a more peaceful and tolerable alter-
native is to conjure the fantasy of mass death and destruction. In short, as the
emancipatory and enriching quality of culture is vitiated, the intellectual and
emotional horizons of the human mind are narrowed. It is thus perhaps utterly
unsurprising that the overall level and quality of political engagement has so
thoroughly declined over the past several decades. The intellectual ability to
analyze different positions and issues, the capacity to form an original argu-
ment, the courage to articulate those thoughts in public and the many skills
necessary to engage in and maneuver through the political process have been
whittled away over time. Even the minimal effort required for the act of vot-
ing, a bare form of participation, is only made by a minority of the eligible
population. The dynamic, active citizens capable of sustaining a democratic
process, defending civil rights, struggling for justice and maintaining the liv-
ing force of positive liberty within society are, therefore, now a distressingly
endangered species. In their stead, a new polity—one composed of frustrated
individuals, marginalized by the failures of contemporary pre-political edu-
cation, who are deeply distrustful of the political process and dubious about
the value of democracy itself—seems to be rising. At best, a campaign like
that of Barack Obama is capable of temporarily mobilizing large crowds with
broad themes like “hope” and “change” that are rarely unpacked or developed
upon. On the whole, it frequently seems as if the art of citizenship is as hope-
lessly lost as the arts themselves.
Of even greater concern, perhaps, is the wasting away of the public sphere
in modern society. In Habermas’s original conceptualization of the public
sphere, the expansion of spaces for free thought, expression and discussion
supported and enabled the expansion of liberalism and democracy. Logos, in
that it offers a space for engaged and critical discourse, is itself is an exemplar
of how liberty and democracy can be fortified through communicative action.