Habermas’s poststructuralism critique is shaped by German anxieties over reactionary challenges
Evidence
Habermas’s critique of poststructuralism has to be seen in this context. Thus he distinguishes between the ‘old conservatives’, who ‘recommend a withdrawal anterior to modernity’, the ‘neocon servatives’ who accept ‘technical progress, capitalist growth and rational administration’ - what Habermas calls ‘societal moderniza tion’ - but ‘recommend a politics of defusing the explosive content of cultural modernity’, and the ‘young conservatives’, who recapitulate the basic experience of aesthetic modernity. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 367
Categorization
- XREF: Frames Habermas’s position within the Historikerstreit — relevant to contextualizing his entire postmodernism polemic. — connects to: Rejecting Marxism foreclosed self-critique, so poststructuralism replaced rather than corrected nationalism — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 70; Postmodernism’s pessimism was a local European crisis wrongly universalized; Critiques of modernism can be hijacked for reactionary cultural politics — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 178 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Critiques of modernism can be hijacked for reactionary cultural politics
#corroborates(0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 178 - Rejecting Marxism foreclosed self-critique, so poststructuralism replaced rather than corrected nationalism
#expands(0.75) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 70 - Postmodernism’s pessimism was a local European crisis wrongly universalized
#expands(0.75) - Poststructuralist theory is itself a postmodernist symptom, not a neutral tool
#qualifies(0.70) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 63