Thanks to Kevin Olson for a thoughtful exchange. One issue that interests us both is the relationship between what might be called “idealizing” and more “realistic” political theory. Often discussions of this revolve around straw men. But there is a significant concern here worth teasing out. I think Olson and I agree somewhat on this topic but also are at least partially at odds. In my book, I contrast the ethos of the “virtual patriot” of the contemporary American right with a more “democratic ethos,” which I associate with a heavily revised Habermasian framework. Olson sees my elucidation of the latter position as reflective of idealizing political theory, contending that my orientation departs too strongly from a realistic, “immanent and interpretive” approach.
As Olson notes, I reject Habermas’s foundationalist claims about necessary moral presuppositions embedded in language. But after such a renunciation, how does one derive those core norms associated with a discourse-ethical orientation to political life? Olson sees me committed primarily to “free and open communication,” a “normative ideal” derived from “theoretical aspects of democratic life.” I am not sure exactly what that means, but it does not adequately characterize my position. After a rejection of foundationalism, all that is left for anyone is to proceed in an “immanent and interpretive” fashion. The real issue involves where exactly one begins that interpretive process. He wants attention tightly focused on the “lived reality” of specific cases.
I do not contest the value of Olson’s “realistic” perspective. But his way of framing things at times seems to imply that my “idealizing” counterperspective leads to analysis divorced from lived reality. He argues that attention to “free communication” is something really important only for “knowledge professionals.” This charge harkens back to the unconvincing claim that a deliberative approach locks itself into seeing the political world as a college seminar. But this ignores the way in which the Frankfurt School always pursued a hermeneutic of suspicion of power, and the way in which the Habermasian frame has always focused on demands for justification on the part of those in power. Now, critics have often correctly highlighted certain modes of power that have been undertheorized by Frankfurters, but such interventions are generally embraced by critical theorists, not rejected.
If an idealizing approach is not totally lost in the clouds, how might we imagine its relation to a realistic one? Each should draw sustenance and possible correction from the other. Interpretation that proceeds immanently from specific, localized cases may be usefully leavened by interpretations drawn from analyses of broader historical vistas, like “Western modernity,” through which we tease out more explicitly universalizing themes. Of course, as we know all too well today, these vistas have often been interpreted in one-sided, whitewashed ways. And proceeding in Olson’s more “realistic” fashion is just what helps expose such vices. My concern is simply to emphasize that political theory is healthiest when we continually tack back and forth in relation to both perspectives. I would like to think that Olson ultimately agrees with me on this.
