{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","title":"Critical Theory of Communication New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781911534044","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","id":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","uuid":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","title":"Critical Theory of Communication New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet","normalized_title":"criticaltheoryofcommunicationnewreadingsoflukácsadornomarcusehonnethandhabermasintheageoftheinternet","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781911534044","isbns":["9781911534044","9781911534051","9781911534068","9781911534075"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":236,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Critical%20Theory%20of%20Communication%20New%20Readings%20of%20Luk%C3%A1cs%2C%20Adorno%2C%20Marcuse%2C%20Honneth%20and%20Habermas%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20the%20Internet","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/search"},"page":{"printed_page":215,"pdf_page":219,"physical_index":219,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"06b897f207be2cec7ebf1f3f10f046f2ffb5ce1a6b15312790589dd95eff0b54"},"chapter":"C H R I S T I A N F U C H S CRITICAL THEORY OF COMMUNICATION","content":"7.7. Towards a Dialectical Critical Theory of Communication\n\nWhat conclusions can we draw from the critical approaches in cultural Marxism discussed in this book and its single chapters?\n\nMarx argues in the German Ideology that society is a ‘real process of production’, in which humans engage in the ‘material production of life itself’ (Marx and Engels 1845, 61). The material character of society is that it is a human realm of social production. Lukács characterises social production as teleological positing: Humans do not just produce, but they produce based on their capacity to define specific goals and purposes of social life. And they do not do so in isolation, but together with others. Co-operation is therefore what Hegel, Marx, Lukács and Marcuse term the essence of society. The ‘production of life is ‘a social relation – social in the sense that it denotes the co-operation of several individuals, no matter under what conditions, in what manner and to what end’ (Marx and Engels 1845, 48–49). The logic of co-operation contradicts the logic of instrumental reason.\n\nSocial production takes place in the economy, politics and culture. Humans produce use-values, collective decisions and meanings. The economy and work are not limited to the production of physical goods. Also culture and politics are on the one hand part of the economy: humans produce and communicate meanings and collective decisions in social processes. But culture and politics are not identical with the economy. They are simultaneously part and no-part of the economy. Once produced, rules and meanings take efect all over society.\n\nCommunication is a fundamental symbolic production process in all these realms of society that helps bringing about and reproducing social relations. We can learn from Adorno and Vološinov that communication and the production and sharing of knowledge are based on dialectics of subject/object, individual/social group, agency/structure, individual knowledge/social knowledge, internalisation/externalisation. If we look at the logic of development of society, all of its subsystems and knowledge, then a Marcusean version of the dialectic applies: development is neither mere necessity, nor mere chance, but a dialectic of chance and necessity, in which the objective structural dialectic conditions the possibilities for human praxis so that humans in the subjective dialectical process make history.\n\nLukács and Honneth show that alienation and reification in societies structured by class and domination bring about structures that are not controlled by all humans, but by the particularistic interests of specific groups. Alienated societies violate human essence in society. It denies humans recognition. What Horkheimer/Adorno call instrumental reason and what Marcuse calls technological rationality describes structures of alienation and reification that try to turn humans into instruments that are dominated, controlled, exploited, excluded and manipulated so that an elite controls society. An alternative is a co-operative society, in which humans appropriate the economy, politics and culture, i.e. are in collective control of the social life they produce and reproduce in society.\n\nConclusion\n\n215","previous_page":214,"next_page":216}