STEVE-O 9/12

I experienced extreme difficulty trying to grasp Habermas and Lyotard simultaneously. On their own, I feel somewhat comfortable with a theorist and his text, but when I start to read the other essay, I become confused by who thinks what, and when, and why. Prior to last week, the texts we have read have somewhat fit together to provide a supplemental guide on how to piece together this difficult concept. The vast contrast in Lyotard in Habermas’ viewpoints just makes “my brain hurt” (sardine). I think Lyotard’s ideology can be seen as a progression of the various preceding texts, yet I find Habermas to stir up the small amount of confidence I had Postmodernism. He claims that the whole Postmodern concept is nil; what we are seeing is just a societal and cultural modernization which is just an extension of our success in a Capitalistic environment…I think. I grasp the definition and ideology given by Habermas to describe Neoconservitism, but what I don’t grasp is whether or not he agrees with this view, accepts it, or just uses it to transition the reader to his final conclusion of a hyper-extended modernism that does not relate to a true Postmodernism. Habermas summarizes his Neocon view with this, “neoconservatives welcome the development of modern science, as long as this goes beyond its sphere to carry forward technical progress, capitalist growth and rational administration” (108). Would moving forward out of this so called sphere not create an even further GAP between culture and reality?