Chapter1: Introduction: Sociological Theory

LEGITIMATION CRISES IN SOCIETY

As Habermas had argued in his earlier work, them are several historical trends in modern societies: (1) the decline of the public sphere, (2) the increasing intervention of the state into the economy, and (3) the growing dominance of science in the service of the state's interests in technical control These ideas are woven together in Legitimation Crisis.

The basic argument in Legitimation Crisis is that, as the state increasingly intervenes in the economy, it also seeks to translate political issues into "technical problems." Issues thus are not topics for public debate; rather, they represent technical problems that require the use of technologies by experts in bureaucratic organizations. As a result, there is a "depoliticization" of practical issues by redefining them as technical problems. To do this, the state propagates a "technocratic consciousness" that Habermas believed represents a new kind of ideology. Unlike previous ideologies, however, it does not promise a future utopia; but, like other ideologies, it is seductive in its ability to veil problems, to simplify perceived options, ~and to justify a particular way of organizing social life. At the core of this technocratic consciousness is an emphasis on "instrumental reason," or what Weber termed means/ends rationality That is, criteria of the efficiency of means in realizing explicit goals increasingly guide evaluations of social action and people's approach to problems. This emphasis on instrumental reason displaces other types of action, such as behaviors oriented to mutual understanding. This displacement occurs in a series of stages: Science is first used by the state to realize specific goals; then, the criterion of efficiency is used by the state to reconcile competing goals of groupings; next, basic cultural values are themselves assessed and evaluated for their efficiency and rationality; finally, in Habermas's version of Brave New World, decisions are completely delegated to computers, which seek the most rational and efficient course of action.

This reliance on the ideology of technocratic consciousnesses creates,

Habermas argues~ new dilemmas of political legitimation. Habermas believes capitalist societies can be divided into three basic subsystems: (1) the economic, (2) the politico-administrative, and (3) the cultural (what he later callslifeworld). From this division of societies into these subsystems, Habermas then posits four points of crises: (1) an "economic crisis" occurs if the economic subsystem cannot generate sufficient productivity to meet people's needs; (2) a "rationality crisis" exists when the politico-administrative subsystem cannot generate a sufficient number of instrumental decisions; (3) a "motivation crisis" exists when actors cannot use cultural symbols to generate sufficient meaning to feel committed to participate fully in the society; and (4) a "legitimation crisis" arises when actors do not possess the "requisite number of generalized motivations" or diffuse commitments to the political subsystem's right to make decisions. Much of this analysis of crises is described in Marxian terms but emphasizes that economic and rationality crises are perhaps less~ important than either motivational or legitimation crises. For, as technocratic consciousness penetrates all spheres of social life and creates productive economies and an intrusive state, the crisis tendencies of late capitalism drift from the inability to produce sufficient economic goods or political decisions to the failure to generate (a) diffuse commitments to political processes and (b) adequate levels of meaning among individual actors.

Legitimation Crisis contains an early form of what becomes an important

distinction: "Systemic" processes revolving around the economy and the politico-administrative apparatus of the state must be distinguished from "cultural" processes. This distinction will later be conceptualized as system and lifeworld, respectively, but the central point is this: In tune with his Frankfurt School roots, Hahermas is shifting emphasis from Marx's analysis of the economic crisis of production to crises of meaning and commitment; if the problems or crises of capitalist societies are in these areas, then critical theory must focus on the communicative and interactive processes by which humans generate understandings and meanings among themselves. If instrumental reason, or means/ends rationality, is driving out action based on mutual understanding and commitment, then the goal of critical theory is to expose this trend and to suggest ways of overcoming it. especially because legitimation and motivational crises make people aware that something is missing horn their lives and, therefore, receptive to more emancipatory alternatives. So the task of critical theory is to develop a theoretical perspective that allows the restructuring of meaning and commitment in social life .This goal will be realized, Habermas argues, by further understanding of how people communicate, interact, and develop symbolic meanings.

THE THEORY OF COMMUNICATIVE ACTION

The two-volume The Theory of Communicative Action pulls together into a reasonably coherent framework various strands of Habermas's thought. yet, true to his general style of scholarship, Habermas wandered over a rather large intellectual landscape. In Thomas McCarthy's words, Habermas develops his ideas through "a somewhat unusual combination of theoretical constructions with historical reconstructions of the ideas of 'classical' social theorists.'' Such thinkers as Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Mead, and Parsons are, for Habermas, "still very much alive" and are treated as "virtual dialogue partners.' As a consequence, the two volumes meander through selected portions of various thinkers' work critiquing and yet using key ideas. After the dust settles, however, the result is a very creative synthesis of ideas into a critical theoey

Habermas's basic premise is summarized near the end of volume 1:

If we assume that the human species maintains itself through the socially coordinated activities of its members and that tiffs coordination is established through communication-and in certain spheres of life, through communication aimed at reaching agreement--then the reproduction of the species also requires satisfying the conditions of a rationality inherent in communicative action.

In other words, intrinsic to the process of communicative action, where actors implicitly make, challenge, and accept one another's validity claims, is a rationality that can potentially serve as the basis for reconstructing the social order in less oppressive ways. The tint volume of The Theory of Communicative Action thus focuses on action and rationality in an effort to reconceptualize both processes in a manner that shifts emphasis from the subjectivity and consciousness of the individual to the process of symbolic interaction. In a sense, volume 1 is Habermas's microsociology, whereas volume 2 is his macrosociology. In the second volume, Habermas introduces the concept of system and tries to connect it to microprocesses of action and interaction through a reconceptualization of the phenomenological concept of lifeworld.