Habermas on why the Irish voted no to Lisbon

by spectator Fri Jul 04, 2008 20:16

The citizens sense that they are being patronized.

Once again, they are to ratify something in the making of which they were not involved. The government has said that this time the referendum will not be repeated until the people give in. And aren't the Irish, this small, obstinate people, the only ones in all of Europe who are actually being asked for their opinions?

They don't want to be treated like cattle being driven to the voting booth. With the exception of three members of parliament who voted "no" on the issue, the Irish people and the entire Irish political class are entirely at odds. In a sense, it is also a referendum over politics in general, making it all the more tempting to send "politics" a message.

This temptation is one felt everywhere today.

___________________________________

I went and read his wikipedia and check this out! he had a series of fights with Derrida and they ended up ignoring each other. Wow. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas
That's almost as good as Ludwig Wittgenstein waving the poker at Karl Popper. You've to give it to the philosophers - they know how to fight in public. If we had more of them doing session and less wanky politicians and words, we would all be better off. We wouldn't even need to read them or quote them anymore in our email sign-offs. just watch them on telly.

by Unwilling Shinner Sat Jul 05, 2008 00:43

I never thought Id say it BUT I'm voting Shinners.

Only shower who will stand up for the majority Irish opinion.

No more suited, puppet clowns will be entertained at my door with bullshit about anything.

Specially not Lisbon.

The people have spoken.

Ireland Second, Democracy first, Europe Next.

by lesage Sat Jul 05, 2008 18:17

I read part one and part two of the posted article by Jürgen Habermas
Part 1: And the Wheels Stopped Turning
Part 2: Time for the Plunge into Democracy

Good article but I do NOT like where it is leading. Thank God for the Irish No.

The Lisbon Treaty itself is brushed aside. Yes, Habermas says it is unreadable to the voters, but then stops short. He does not discuss the absurdity of what is being proposed in the treaty. Maybe he did not read it: 300 pages of ammendments to 3000 pages of original text from other agreement documents. But the substance is a tyranical Europe. He should have said so.

He is also behind the idea of an EU Exit for Irland because of the no vote, but has he forgotten that Irland is bound to full rights in Europe by other treaties and has adopted the Euro? And a Nay from Irland means no Lisbon treaty. The Lisbon treaty is KADUK.

This proposal of Exit for Irland is then compounded by a proposal to conduct a Europe wide referendum, and based on the results he suggests constructing a two-speed Europe. He does not specify the question of the referendum. I suppose it would be about Lisbon conditions.

And by the way, the Lisbon treaty is touted as a necessary reform to streamline the EU. This is just EU propaganda.

Lisbon is of course the rejected EU consitution written in cryptic and convoluted language. The proposed consitution itself is a disaster for any democracy and accountability. European parliament has no powers.

And I remind you, because of EU, Irish troups are already under fire in the sands of Africa in Chad.

I am not against Europe but I am against building a tyranical unaccountable Euro dictatorship subservient to NATO and USA, in the Bogus War On Terror, and creating a Euro surveillance society.

Thank God for the Irish No! Let us remain vigilant.

sherif lesage
France

Notes:
Google: irish troops under fire in chad

I ask Habernase to watch this important discussion video about the Lisbon treaty (filmed before before the Irish vote).

by - Sat Jul 05, 2008 21:35

Lesage seems to expect too much of Habermas. Nobody reads treaties. The people who write treaties don't even read them. They are mostly chosen in some very odd way to argue over what should be in the treaty or not in a very clause by clause way, in a process which can take years and needs to be translated into multiple langauges and more often than not the people who sign the finished product include many who weren't involved in agreeing the first clauses. This way of formulating treaties is considered to be the former model which generally needed a war to focus peoples' minds on essentials. But not a single person reading this in Ireland or of Irish ethnicity has read the treaties which defined Irish statehood.

So, Habermas is a philosopher who is an important name in the western tradition of marxistic socialist development. "Speigel" not only pays him to write for them they send people out to record him when he's interviewed. Perhaps he is really freaky and had read the Lisbon Treaty and can recite its every chapter to this day like a good kid at the Ashram can rhyme off the verses of the Quran.

But I reckon he just got asked about the "Irish vote" it and the "Speigel" magazine reckoned people would be interested. It might have been Chomksy who had been asked, who wouldn't need to be translated in English and may have come cheaper at the price.

We don't judge philosophers or global class intellectuals on one page of newspaper which supports advertising. Nor do we over- or under- estimate them. Maybe he did read and memorise and analyse (but obviously not deconstruct given his nasty neurosis about Derrida) the Lisbon Treaty and didn't want to mention it in his interview so as not to seem to partial or clever. Perhaps he didn't read the Lisbon Treaty and didn't even think he had to. Most people who voted didn't. I think that's the point he was making.

Like many of his intellectual stature he is approachable, as long as you bear the Derrida thing in mind and don't start parsing up his Speigel text and thinking it expresses his quintessential essence or his long considered opinion of the Irish. You could ask him yourself if he read the Treaty of Lisbon.
Then possibly invite him to visit Ireland at the same time as Ratzinger and see someone weighty on Pat Kenny's armchair come the Eucharistic Congress Late Late Show Special Or chance of farce, I might do that for you. Be encouraged

Phone: 00 847 491-3656 Fax: 00 847 491-2547 Email: philosophy@northwestern.edu

by Ereugenia Sun Jul 06, 2008 08:00

Sounds like a good idea for RTE to invite the great philosopher Habermas to Ireland so he can tell us why we voted No. His comments on the Eucharistic Congress would also boost the TAM ratings in Ballyslattery and possibly induce a viewer or two to buy and study a couple of his books on philosophy. What is his philosophy anyway? Is there anything about it that would help me to live a better life?

by - Sun Jul 06, 2008 15:44

"The The Dialectics of Secularization" is the name of the 2007 book version of the Habermas and Ratzinger conversations, in which they locked horns about questions like these :-
* Is a public culture of reason and ordered liberty possible in our post-metaphysical age?
* Is philosophy permanently cut adrift from its grounding in being and anthropology?
* Does this decline of rationality signal an opportunity or a deep crisis for religion itself?

I'm not sure how practical that would seem on "The Late Late Show Eucharistic Congress Special" (with a bit of holy bread for everyone in the audience) especially to viewers at home who just wanted to wind down after a long week's empovrishment.

There is also an ongoing & very bitter dispute between fans of Habermas and Foucault.


Before Michel Foucault became the first prominent French man to die of an AIDS-related illness in 1984, his philosophy had evolved theories of "power analytics" and "genealogy". He died just before he finished presenting the last volumes of his "history of sexuality" which was resented in some circles because of Foucault's obvious empowerment of "queer theory and queer power".

Habermas joined Chomsky and ironically Derrida in the list of people who attacked not only his philosophy of "power analytics" but his view of wider society.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Foucault/Habermas_debate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault#Criticisms...cault you can read that here :-
http://flyvbjerg.plan.aau.dk/CIVSOC5%200PRINTBJS.pdf