Technology and science as "ideology"

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Technology and Science as “Ideology” is an anthology with essays by Jürgen Habermas , which was published in 1968 as a book. He dedicated it to Herbert Marcuse on his 70th birthday (July 19, 1968).

This was preceded by the larger book Knowledge and Interest , in which Habermas reconstructed the intellectual prehistory of the new positivism and sought a justification of critical social theory in an anthropological way . Indeed:

"The epistemological foundation of critical social theory, however, brought a number of problems with it."

- Wiggershaus

That is why Habermas opened “the project of a critical social theory based on communication theory”.

Rolf Wiggershaus sees science and technology as “ideology” as the “first analysis of the pathology of modernity, the deforming Enlightenment, which bundles diverse motives” . Habermas then “abruptly contrasts the alternative” to the dialectic of the Enlightenment (Adorno / Horkheimer) and to the one-dimensional human being (Marcuse).

Helmut Dubiel recognizes a text “ which contains all the elements of the developed theory (of communicative action , i.e. , germinal) in itself. “As a result, the diagnosis is not very different from the kind of criticism of civilization as it was proclaimed in the Dialectic of Enlightenment and in Marcuse's One-Dimensional People . But Habermas claims that his diagnostic apparatus is more differentiated “through the introduction of a lifeworld dimension determined by communicative structures” and “the introduction of the two-dimensional social concept” . For Habermas, society does not only come about through the blind work of market laws and scientific and technical imperatives, but also through the generally conscious communicative action of its members, which is oriented towards norms and sociocultural traditions .

Unlike Habermas, who defines work as instrumental action , Gerd Spittler, with reference to ethnographic case studies, always defines work as interaction or communicative action . From the point of view of the ethnologist , nothing speaks in favor of the instrumental conception of work postulated by Habermas or the rule of technology. Rather, the work in Spittler's case studies turns out to be "interaction between independent workers, work equipment and work items."

Work and interaction. Comments on Hegel's "Jenenser Philosophy of Spirit"

Work and Interaction (the first essay in the anthology Technology and Science as “Ideology”) reflects a Hegel reading that poses the question of the connection between the two categories of work and interaction . In the first section Habermas introduces the various concepts of the ego from Kant , Fichte and Hegel. From there, in the second section, Habermas moves on to a comparison of the moral standpoints of Kant and Hegel, which is both a criticism of Kant's concept of morality and an explanation of Hegel's dialectic of the moral. In the third section, Habermas discusses Hegel's dialectical patterns of work and language, contrasts them again with Kant and his understanding of technology and theory, and emphasizes an aspect of language that distinguishes it from the categories of work and interaction, namely, that it is a necessary condition for the identity of the self. The three categories of language , work and interaction - understood as patterns of formation of consciousness - lead Habermas in the fourth section to the question of their connection or their unity; the question also leads him to the eponymous question about the connection between work and interaction. At the end of the fourth and fifth sections, he explains why the importance of the connection between work and interaction and, above all, the dialectic of work decreased in Hegel's later work. The connection between work and interaction and the meaning of work - as Habermas interprets in the sixth section - was rediscovered by Marx, without knowledge of the Jenenser lectures, in his examination of the connection between productive forces and production relations and work as his theoretical starting point. However, Habermas rejects Marx's conception on the accusation that his production paradigm reduces interaction to work. Following his Hegelian interpretation that neither work can be reduced to interaction nor interaction to work, and in this sense rejecting Marx's theory, Habermas closes with a question that he notes as not “satisfactorily explained”: the open question the relationship between work and interaction.

Technology and science as "ideology"

Technology and science as “ideology” is the central essay in the anthology of the same name. Habermas claims that the two key categories of Karl Marx , namely class struggle and ideology , can no longer be applied without further ado, but that new zones of conflict have arisen within bourgeois late capitalist society . In his opinion, these new conflict zones can only arise “in the system of the public managed by mass media ” . But the problem arises as to who will enliven these new conflicts. He sees in the students and pupils may a group for out of the question.

On the basis of two development tendencies of late capitalism , Habermas is convinced that the concept of class struggle in the Marxian sense is outdated for two reasons: “1. an increase in interventionist state activity, which must ensure the stability of the system, and 2. a growing interdependence of research and technology, which makes science the first productive force . " These two tendencies were not present in Marx's time, and " therefore relevant ones are no longer applicable Initial conditions for political economy in the version that Marx rightly gave it with regard to liberal capitalism . "

State interventionism

The first tendency has the effect that Marx's basic superstructure theory no longer applies. Liberal capitalism seemed to function without state intervention, but actually gave birth to crises and mass poverty. Therefore the state tried to tame capitalism by embedding the free market in state regulations. The collapse of the bourgeois ideology of free, equal and just exchange resulted in state interventionism .

Thus there is no longer a monocausal determination of the superstructure by the base. “But this has changed the relationship between the economic system and the system of rule; Politics is no longer just a superstructure phenomenon. " Therefore, " the system of rule [...] can no longer be criticized directly in terms of the relations of production . " Where there is no ideology (of free and just exchange), criticism cannot be limited to ideology criticism .

But what is taking the place of the old ideology? A substitute program that connects “the moment of the bourgeois achievement ideology [...] with the guarantee of welfare minima, the prospect of job security and the stability of income” . It is thus oriented towards “a state activity that compensates for the dysfunctions of free exchange.” Habermas sees this as a “peculiar negative character” of politics, because the practical questions, i.e. how living conditions are designed in a reasonable way, are eliminated and one takes their place Politics oriented towards solving technical questions.

Scientificization of technology

The second tendency that Habermas sees in late capitalism, he also describes as “the scientification of technology”. While technology used to take over scientific research results by chance, in the present there are research departments in industry itself and industry and the state award research funds ( third-party funds ) at research institutions (including universities). The entire research is oriented towards technically usable knowledge without being able to self-determine the question of the meaning. But progress is rapidly approaching a goal that is no longer accessible to anyone.

To the same extent, politics becomes a mere social technology that is only willing to provide the right means for ends brought about from outside; a policy that - like today - seems to consist only of practical constraints: economic growth and work as a panacea that nobody really believes in secret anymore. "If this bill but effective set, the propaganda reference to the role of technology and science can explain and justify why a democratic decision-making process losing in modern societies on practical issues its functions and by plebiscitary decisions about alternative leadership sets the administrative personnel replaced must become'."

Communicatively mediated value rationality loses its legitimacy in such a technocracy , but it would be the only way to help the whole thing to legitimize.

Technical and operational management constraints

A central problem of modern societies is the apparent lack of alternatives to technical solutions and political constraints.

“The manifest rule of the authoritative state gives way to the manipulative constraints of the technical-operational administration. The moral enforcement of a sanctioned order, and thus communicative action, which is based on linguistically articulated meaning and presupposes the internalization of norms, is increasingly being replaced by conditioned behaviors, while the large organizations as such increasingly come under the structure of purposeful rational action. The industrially advanced societies seem to be approaching the model of behavior control driven more by external stimuli than by norms. Indirect guidance through set stimuli has increased, especially in areas of apparently subjective freedom (choice, consumption, leisure behavior). The social-psychological signature of the age is characterized less by the authoritarian personality than by the destructuring of the superego . "

- Jürgen Habermas : Technology and science as "ideology"

Purposeful action

The increase in “adaptive behavior”, which is evident in the development tendencies mentioned above, is only one side of the expanding structure of purposeful rational action, at the expense of action mediated by language. The other is that individuals no longer recognize the difference between the two options for action. Here Habermas sees "the ideological power of technocratic consciousness" which "obscures" this difference .

But if these two developmental tendencies exist, Marx's approach must be revised. “The connection between productive forces and production relations would have to be replaced by the more abstract one between work and interaction .” Habermas gains this new approach from the criticism of Max Weber and Herbert Marcuse. Habermas assumes that Marcuse is assuming a technology that only characterizes a historical epoch, i.e. that it is changeable. Habermas assumes, however, that technology "apparently can only be traced back to a project of the human species as a whole."

“If one realizes that technical development follows a logic that corresponds to the structure of purposeful and success-controlled action, and that still means: the structure of work, then one cannot see how we ever do as long as the organization of the human nature does not change as long as we therefore have to preserve our lives through social work and with the help of work-substituting means, technology, and our technology, in favor of a qualitatively different one. "

- Jürgen Habermas

Alternative attitude to nature

Habermas criticizes Marcuse for having “an alternative attitude to nature in mind, but the idea of ​​a new technology cannot be derived from it.” He sees “the alternative to the existing technology, the design of nature as the adversary of the object ” in an alternative structure of action: on “ symbolically mediated interaction in contrast to purposeful action. ” With Marcuse one cannot “ the real rationality of science and technology, which on the one hand is a growing potential of excessive productive forces that continues to threaten the institutional framework marks, and on the other hand also provides the yardstick for legitimizing the restrictive production conditions ”, criticize. So it cannot be determined how “the rational form of science and technology, that is, the rationality embodied in systems of purposeful rational action, expands into a way of life, into the social totality of a lifeworld.” Because Habermas believes that neither Weber nor Marcuse succeeds in doing this he reformulated Weber's concept of “ rationalization ” in a different reference system.

Two-dimensional socio-theoretical view

Elsewhere Habermas describes more explicitly the problems posed by Weber's “subjective approach” ; On the one hand, "that Weber examines the rationalization of the systems of action solely under the aspect of functional rationality." On the other hand, because Weber "equates the capitalist system of modernization with social rationalization in general." In science and technology as "ideology" he outlines a new concept , which Dubiel describes with a “two-dimensional socio-theoretical view”.

Terminology

Habermas defines his terms in science and technology as "ideology" (pp. 62–65):

Under work or purposive action Habermas understands either:

instrumental action
is based on technical rules that are based on empirical knowledge, or:
rational choice
is based on strategies based on analytical knowledge.

Under interaction or communicative action Habermas understands a

symbolically mediated interaction; it is based on mandatory norms that define reciprocal behavioral expectations and must be understood and recognized by two acting subjects.

Purposeful rational action realizes defined goals under given conditions; But while instrumental action organizes means that are appropriate or inadequate according to criteria of effective control of reality, strategic action depends only on a correct evaluation of possible behaviors, which results solely from a deduction with the help of values ​​and maxims.

While the validity of technical rules and strategies depends on the validity of empirically true or analytically correct sentences, the validity of social norms is based solely on the intersubjectivity of the understanding of intentions and secured by the general recognition of obligations.

In both cases the violation has different forms.

  • An incompetent behavior , the proven technical rules or proper strategies is injured, per se condemned by failure to failure; the punishment is, so to speak, failure in reality.
  • A deviant behavior , violated the applicable standards, triggers sanctions that are only externally, namely by conventions associated with the rules.

Learned rules of purposeful rational action equip us with the discipline of skills, internalized norms with that of personality structures. Skills enable us to solve problems. Motivations allow us to practice conforming to standards . Please also note the following table on page 64 of Science and Technology as "Ideology":

Institutional framework: symbolically mediated interaction Systems of purposeful (instrumental and strategic) action
Action-oriented rules Social norms technical rules
Level of definition intersubjectively shared colloquial language context-free language
Type of definition reciprocal behavioral expectations conditional prognosis , conditional imperatives
Mechanisms of acquisition Internalization of roles Learning skills and qualifications
Function of the action type Maintaining institutions (compliance with norms based on reciprocal reinforcement) Problem solving (achievement of goals, defined in terms of means-ends)
Sanctions for rule violation Punishment based on conventional sanctions : failure of authority Unsuccessfulness: failure due to reality
"Rationalization" Emancipation, individuation; Expansion of communication without domination Increase in the productive forces; Extension of technical control.

Differences in Traditional Societies

On the basis of the “instruments”, Habermas further differentiates his arguments in terms of socio-historical and developmental logic. According to this, traditional societies (so-called high cultures ) differ from primitive societies in three points:

  • 1.  by the fact of centralized power  […];
  • 2.  by dividing society into socio-economic classes  […];
  • 3.  by the fact that some central world view (myth, high religion) is in force for the purpose of an effective legitimation of rule.

In traditional societies, the institutional framework is superior to the sub-systems of purposeful action. So traditional rule was political rule. With the development of the capitalist mode of production, which did not result in a crisis-free but steady growth in productivity, “the innovation as such is institutionalized”. This means that the sub-systems of purposeful rational action are constantly expanding and thus undermining the traditional “form of the legitimation of domination.” But at the same time capitalism offers another legitimation, namely “the system of domination can, for its part, be justified by the legitimate conditions of production become “  - economic legitimation.

The beginning of modernity (socio-cultural threshold) can be determined “with the loss of the invulnerability of the institutional framework by the sub-systems of purposeful rational action” . Habermas sees a disproportionate socio-cultural development here. On the one hand, the environment, nature , is actively adapted to our needs, on the other hand, the institutional framework is passively adapted to the needs of the sub-systems of purposeful action. Marx already saw this and viewed it “as the task of a practical mastery of previously uncontrolled processes of social development. Others have seen it as a technical task. ” According to Habermas, the consequence is dehumanization, because among individuals “ the old zones of consciousness developed in colloquial communication dry up completely (...) people make their story with will, but not with consciousness. "

Habermas concludes from this that “two concepts of rationalization must be kept apart.” On the one hand, rationalization on the level of purposeful rational action . However, this kind of rationalization can only be a potential for liberation if it does not violate the level of rationalization of the institutional framework.

“Rationalization on the level of the institutional framework can only take place in the medium of linguistically mediated interaction itself, namely by unrestricted communication. The public, unrestricted and domination-free discussion about the appropriateness and desirability of action-orienting principles and norms in the light of the socio-cultural repercussions of advancing sub-systems of purposeful rational action - communication of this kind at all levels of the political and again politically made decision-making processes is the only medium in which something like 'rationalization' is possible. "

- Jürgen Habermas

Summary

Habermas sees that “that unrestricted communication about goals of life practice” unfolds with difficulty in late capitalism, since it is “structurally dependent on a depoliticized public” and “resistant to the thematization of such topics”. But who should or can carry the issues into the mass media or the general public - in 1968, Habermas only thought of privileged pupils and students. Viewed from today, however, one can say that he was wrong. The so-called 68ers have long since ended their march through the institutions - but nothing has changed in the structural problems of late capitalism diagnosed by Habermas.

literature

  • Helmut Dubiel : Critical Theory of Society . Weinheim and Munich 1988.
  • Jürgen Habermas: Technology and science as “ideology” . Frankfurt am Main 1989 (1968).
  • Jürgen Habermas: Theory of communicative action . 2 volumes, Frankfurt am Main 1988.
  • Thomas Krämer-Badoni: On the legitimacy of bourgeois society: An investigation of the concept of work in the theories of Locke, Smith, Ricardo, Hegel and Marx . Frankfurt / Main and New York 1978.
  • Hans Lenk: Technocracy . In: W. Mickel: Handlexikon zur political science . Munich 1986.
  • Herbert Marcuse: The one-dimensional person . Frankfurt a. M. 1990.
  • Thomas McCarthy: Critique of the understanding relationships, on the theory of Jürgen Habermas . Translated by Max Looser. Frankfurt / Main 1980.
  • Willem van Reijen : Philosophy as Critique. Introduction to Critical Theory. Königstein / Ts., 1984.
  • Göran Therborn , Jürgen Habermas: A new eclectic . In: Materials on Habermas' knowledge and interest . Edited by Winfried Dallmayer. Frankfurt / Main 1974, pp. 244-267
  • Rolf Wiggershaus : The Frankfurt School. History - Theoretical Development - Political Significance. Munich and Vienna 1988. ISBN 3423301740 .

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ p. 706
  2. ↑ p. 708
  3. ↑ Helmut Dubiel: Critical Theory of Society . P. 95
  4. ↑ Gerd Spittler: Anthropology of work. An ethnographic comparison. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2016, p. 66 ff, ISBN 978-3-658-10433-7 .
  5. ↑ Habermas 1989, p. 100
  6. ↑ a b p. 74
  7. ↑ p. 75
  8. ↑ p. 76
  9. ↑ p. 77
  10. ↑ p. 76
  11. ↑ p. 79
  12. ↑ p. 81
  13. ↑ p. 83
  14. ↑ p. 84
  15. ↑ p. 92
  16. ↑ p. 55
  17. ↑ p. 56 f.
  18. ↑ a b p. 57
  19. ↑ p. 58 f.
  20. ↑ p. 59 f.
  21. ↑ p. 61
  22. ↑ p. 65
  23. ↑ p. 68
  24. ↑ p. 69
  25. ↑ p. 70
  26. ↑ p. 93
  27. ↑ p. 96
  28. ↑ p. 97
  29. ↑ a b p. 98
  30. ↑ p. 99 f.