Official Pynchon List Quote Of The Year 2000

[Lorentzen / Nicklaus]

Dave Monroe schrieb:

> reading
> for you, Paul ...
>
> Habermas, Jurgen.  The Theory of Communicative Action,
>     Volume I: Reason and the Rationalization of Society.
>     Trans. Thomas McCarthy.  Boston: Beacon, 1985.


     ach laberspaß ... like lars clausen once wrote: to read this book (- the   
     whole desert of the 1200 pages: vol 1&2) is a punishment. as a german      
     sociologist i cannot help but read & even teach this stuff (- you should   
     have seen the long faces of that 120 freshwo/men last week, when i taught  
     them about habermas' typology of action ...), but it's exactly this kind of 
     prose which gives social theory a bad reputation. still consider "the      
     structural change of the public sphere" from the early 60s the only book by 
     habermas which could be called a must. but - hey paul! - do you really want 
     to bore yourself with dry cultural protestantism like this?! in case you're 
     really interested in continental social theory these days, i - no wonder - 
     recommend "social systems" by luhmann: makes clear how the 
     self-organization of communication works beyond the intentions of 
     individual human actors & is, furthermore, written in a brilliant 
     futuristic style. a-and it completely lacks the protestant 
     self-righteousness our oh so 'humanistic' habermas is notorious for ...    
   
 kfl