{"id":4077,"date":"2016-08-16T11:57:02","date_gmt":"2016-08-16T18:57:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/?p=4077"},"modified":"2020-01-09T04:04:13","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T11:04:13","slug":"common-consent-consensus-formation-and-habermas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/2016\/08\/common-consent-consensus-formation-and-habermas\/4077\/","title":{"rendered":"Common Consent, Consensus Formation and Habermas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is there anything that you would be more willing to purchase when your mother is not present?\u00a0 What about your father?\u00a0 What about your children? What about an attractive young adult with whom you\u2019re on a second date?\u00a0 Does this person\u2019s presence effect how you treat a homeless person that asks you for change?\u00a0 Does his\/her presence effect which jokes or stories you are willing to tell? \u00a0Which moral values you are and are not willing to take a stand on?\u00a0 I think the standard answer to most of\u00a0these questions is: yes, of course. \u00a0It is perfectly normal and healthy to adapt one\u2019s behavior to those who are present.\u00a0 In this post I wish to approach the ways in which public acclamations of \u201ccommon consent\u201d in the form of sustaining our leaders differ from other forms of \u201cconsensus\u201d and the means (both private and public) by which they are formed and maintained.<\/p>\n

For starters, almost every type of community holds some type of \u201cconsensus\u201d or \u201ccommon consent\u201d in high esteem.\u00a0 It is in this sense that many consensus theories of truth (where \u201ctruth\u201d is the \u201cconsensus\u201d that is arrived\u00a0at at the end of \u201cinquiry\u201d under \u201cideal\u201d conditions) and many appeals to \u201ccommon consent\u201d within the church can often be quite bereft of content.\u00a0 J\u00fcrgen Habermas, however, is a clear exception to this tendency in his defense of a participatory democracy in which the consensus reached at the end of \u201ccommunicative action\u201d ought to determine collective action.\u00a0 While I do have serious reservations about his theory, it is certainly not empty and will thus serve as a convenient entry point to the discussion.<\/p>\n

Habermas\u2019 account draws some very important distinctions, while strategically eliding others. I will begin by drawing out (what I perceive to be) his shortcomings.\u00a0 While he is very strongly influenced by American pragmatism and ordinary language philosophy (he loves J. L. Austin\u2019s theory of speech acts), it is unclear whether he is sufficiently pragmatic in his definition of a morally binding \u201cconsensus\u201d.\u00a0 As a rough sketch, he holds that communicative deliberation begins when there is a disagreement regarding collective action and ends when consensus is sufficiently met such that we can move forward by implementing the agreed upon course of collective action.\u00a0 The problem is that consensus, so defined, is by no means homogeneous: there are many, varied means by which disagreements can be voluntarily removed as barriers to collective action.<\/p>\n

Habermas has little regard for most of these diverse forms of \u201cconsensus\u201d (that I will describe shortly) because he insists that a consensus based in communicative action is totally distinct from one based in strategic, goal-directed action.\u00a0 True communicative action, according to Habermas, has mutual understanding as its sole end purpose, something which has zero overlap with the pursuit of one\u2019s own particularistic goals.\u00a0 This point is where most of his critics disagree with him \u2013 myself included.<\/p>\n

Communication, by my lights, is a social process wherein we marshal and dissolve moral coalitions with and against other people.\u00a0 Morals and truths are the norms by which we actively constrain and are constrained by others within our shared social environment and moral coalitions.\u00a0 There are, then, three different stances that we can take to any moral coalition: we can support it (typically by calling it \u201ctrue\u201d or \u201cright\u201d), we can resist it (typically by calling it \u201cfalse\u201d or \u201cwrong\u201d) or we can be relatively neutral towards it (typically by remaining silent or ambivalent about it).<\/p>\n

There are two points at which my account differs from that of Habermas.\u00a0 First, I take the possibility of neutrality much more seriously than Habermas does.\u00a0 Second, while Habermas must draw a strict line between a consensus that is based in \u201cstrategy\u201d and one that is based in \u201ccommunication\u201d, my account resists any such distinction, it being strategic through and though.\u00a0 I thus replace his distinction with my own between \u201cinterest-oriented\u201d consensus and \u201cobligation-oriented\u201d consensus.\u00a0 Our attempts at picking and choosing which moral coalitions we will support, resist or remain neutral toward is thus inescapably strategic.\u00a0 Habermas thinks all strategic uses of power are immoral forms of manipulation and alienation, but I see no reason (a) why some strategic uses of power cannot be more righteous than others, (b) why we would ever want morality and truth to be impotent, or (c) how such a version of morality could ever effectively resist evil, as we presumably want it to.<\/p>\n

There are, then, four different types of consensus which would allow collective action to move forward in the way that Habermas suggests and each of them involves some amount of strategy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

Consensus Type<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

Support:<\/td>\nNeutrality:<\/td>\nResistance:<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n

Obligation-Oriented:<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Sustain<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Concede<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

–<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Interest-Oriented:<\/td>\nEndorse<\/strong><\/td>\nIndifferent<\/strong><\/td>\n\n

–<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

    \n
  • The interest-oriented neutrality of \u201cindifference<\/strong>\u201d: The fact that I feel no need or urge to resist (or support) the church\u2019s campaigns against SSM means that a consensus is preserved. This absence of overt support or resistance to the church\u2019s actions basically amounts to \u201cgoing with the flow\u201d.<\/li>\n
  • The interest-oriented support of \u201cendorsement<\/strong>\u201d: This is when I support a collective action because I want the action to happen. This is when a cab-driver attempts to impose restrictions on Uber or Lyft solely because the latter are hurting his business.\u00a0 (Some OW supporters will insist that this must be *the* reason why a male \u2013 especially church leaders – within the church does not support them and will thus ignore all of the other 3 explanations.)<\/li>\n
  • The obligation-oriented neutrality of \u201cconcession<\/strong>\u201d: This is when we keep silent on an issue, not because \u201cI don\u2019t care either way,\u201d but because taking an overt position for or against it will attract moral censure.\u00a0 A great example of this would be when I receive personal revelation in support of SSM, but I keep it to myself precisely because the revelation was personal.\u00a0 In this, I \u201cconcede\u201d the church\u2019s position out of an obligation not to resist it, even while I cannot support it, again, out of obligation.<\/li>\n
  • The obligation-oriented support of \u201csustaining<\/strong>\u201d: This is when we sustain a course of action, even though it might work against our interests. To use the example above, this is when a church member distributes Prop-8 literature within their own university-town neighborhood, knowing full well that by doing so they will be socially alienated by their secular neighbors and colleagues.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    All four of the above are cases in which collective action moves forward with \u201ccommon consent\u201d due to an absence of overt objections or resistance within the group.\u00a0 In other words, unless one adds a great deal of content to the consensus theory of truth or to the proof-text appeals to \u201ccommon consent\u201d, such appeals simply haven\u2019t ruled much out.\u00a0 For example, by ignoring the possibility of neutrality, Habermas effectively marginalizes the roles that concession and indifference both play in any consensus.\u00a0 His distinction between strategic and communicative action is also aimed at marginalizing endorsement (and, again, indifference) as a morally inadequate form of consensus.\u00a0 Since I reject his theory of communicative action, I find these all-or-nothing to be largely unhelpful.<\/p>\n

    Switching gears somewhat, not only are there various types of \u201ccommon consent\u201d which allow collective action to move forward, but there are also various means by which such a consensus is formed and maintained.\u00a0 I wish here to discuss four such mechanisms that I will, again, classify along two different dimensions.\u00a0 There are two premodern forms of consensus formation.\u00a0 These have typically been public in that support\/resistance to a position takes place within the public view and thus exposes it to a second order of support\/resistance from a third party.\u00a0 Modern, liberal society, by contrast, has two forms of consensus formation that tend to be private in that our support or resistance to some collective action can be hidden from the public view and thus protected from the second order evaluations mentioned above, if we so choose.\u00a0 Within these two types (premodern and modern) of societies there have also been centralized and decentralized mechanisms by which a consensus is formed and reinforced:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
    Types of Consensus Formation<\/td>\nDecentralized:<\/td>\nCentralized:<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    Public (obligation-oriented):<\/td>\nMorals<\/strong><\/td>\nAcclamation<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    Private (interest-oriented):<\/td>\nMarkets<\/strong><\/td>\nElections<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
      \n
    • The decentralized publicity of \u201cmorals<\/strong>\u201d: These are the public evaluations that make up everyday life in which neighbors and family members morally condemn an offense for two purposes: (a) to warn, condemn or punish the offender and\/or (b) to be known as somebody who warns, condemns or punishes offenders. These are evaluations that are themselves evaluated.<\/li>\n
    • The centralized publicity of the \u201cacclamation\u201d<\/strong>: This is when signals of support or resistance are publicly displayed within a large, centralized gathering \u2013 thus making them common knowledge. Practicality dictates that such forms of consensus formation will almost always consist in the public acceptance or rejection of a very small set of predetermined options.\u00a0 The sustaining of priesthood leaders and King Benjamin\u2019s speech are the clearest examples of this.<\/li>\n
    • The decentralized privacy of \u201cmarkets<\/strong>\u201d: This is where production, exchange and consumption of goods in based in how much doing so serves the interests of one or two parties \u2013 regardless of what the public thinks about it. The only evaluation that is intrinsic to this is the price \u2013 an unevaluated evaluation.\u00a0 The private nature of these transactions places them outside the reach of public morality, thus throwing the door wide open to i) private vices and ii) conspicuous consumption.<\/li>\n
    • The centralized privacy of \u201celections<\/strong>\u201d: The other modern means by which we decide collective action is the election, where my vote is \u201cnobody else\u2019s business\u201d unless I allow it to be. In this way, my vote is, again, shielded from public scrutiny and moral evaluation, thus becoming an unevaluated evaluation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      As noted in the table above, the very privacy of private forms of consensus formation make them ideally suited to the interest-oriented forms of consensus above: endorsement and indifference.\u00a0 Since the public is not aware of what producers or positions I am supporting with my dollars and ballots, there is no practical way for an obligation-orientation to gain any traction on such actions.\u00a0 In other words, this opens the door to all the purchases and votes that I would not be willing to engage in with my parents present.\u00a0 Similarly, the public nature of premodern society is exactly what made obligation-oriented forms of support so sustainable.<\/p>\n

      The widespread objection from socialists and romantics to modern society should be fairly obvious, given the above taxonomy.\u00a0 The interest-oriented manner in which we decide collective action is totally drained of obligation-orientation in that all such \u201cdecisions\u201d become nothing more than the negotiated allocation of \u201cendorsement\u201d and \u201cindifference\u201d among various self-interested parties of very different financial means and political influence.\u00a0 This is in stark opposition to the premodern societies where production was aimed at the common good rather than self-interested profit and was regulated by evaluative, moral relations rather than merely enforced by the neutral, state judicial system.\u00a0 (See Karl Polanyi\u2019s The Great Transformation<\/em>)<\/p>\n

      In today\u2019s liberal society, by contrast, free market economists claim that markets serve the \u201cdictates of the consumer\u201d and thus reduce all \u201cmoral values\u201d to \u201cprivate preferences\u201d that, as such, can be built into and quantified by the market.\u00a0 The obvious objections to this are 1) due to its private nature, this is a replacement for morality rather than a mere quantification of morality, and 2) when some consumers get a billion more dollars with which to vote for what does and does not get produced, the idea that producers obey \u201cthe consumer\u201d loses all of its moral content.\u00a0 Yes, producers compete with each other to serve the consumer, but consumers also compete with one another for conspicuous (rather than morally evaluated) consumption. While the former might(!) be compatible with premodern morality, the latter is quite obviously not \u2013 and it\u2019s not clear that we could ever separate the two.\u00a0 The scriptures repeatedly warn us against allowing any form of interested-oriented consensus to guide our collective action.<\/p>\n

      What must also be noted is that one type of consensus formation may greatly influence another.\u00a0 In modern society, for example, many leftists complain that the influence of the decentralized upon centralized elections is too great, and thus propose a \u201cplanned society\u201d in which centralized elections constrain and shape the decentralized market. A similar tension exists between acclamation and morality.\u00a0 Within premodern society (and the contemporary church) a traditional authority figure puts forth their own decision for public acclamation.\u00a0 It is then expected that decentralized morality will be shaped and influenced by this centralized acclamation and not the other way around.\u00a0 Habermas, by contrast, wants to reverse this relation by claiming that decentralized moral discourse (rather than the private \u201csteering media\u201d of money and power) will produce a consensus that authority figures will then implement.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Yes, Habermas\u2019 vision would count as one version of \u201ccommon consent\u201d, but it is hardly the only version, nor is it the one advocated within the scriptures.<\/p>\n

      My taxonomy also brings to light other dangers and pitfalls of modern history.\u00a0 Modernity evolved as traditional authorities and evaluative moralities came to be replaced by an elected state that exercised a monopoly on the legitimate use of force to protect and enforce (but not evaluate) market transactions.\u00a0 This immensely powerful, centralized state was then taken up by various ideologies as the only weapon strong enough to compete with the a-morality of the decentralized market.\u00a0 It was in this 20th<\/sup> century context, then, that some countries tried to reassert a particular set of moral values through the use of the centralized state \u2013 thus producing the totalitarianisms of the political left and right.\u00a0 (It is absurd that this would ever lead to the \u201cwithering away\u201d of the state.) Totalitarianism is thus a *very* modern invention that describes neither the traditional hierarchies nor the church of today.\u00a0 Anybody who conflates these very different types of social organization is either 1) woefully uninformed and\/or 2) trying to pull the wool over your eyes for the sake of the moral coalitions that they support.<\/p>\n

      In summary, I wish to return to the opening paragraph where I noted how the watchful and evaluative gaze of those with whom we regularly interact alters what we purchase, what we say and what we support.\u00a0 In such cases, our spending is morally evaluated; Our speech acts are morally evaluated; Indeed, our moral evaluations and truth claims are themselves morally evaluated.\u00a0 It is with this in mind that the worldview of traditional religion insists that all such acts and transactions are quasi-public in their being observed by God.<\/p>\n

      This moral influence of public evaluations is exactly why we publicly sustain church leaders, and why priesthood authority is needed to structure and organize God\u2019s kingdom into wards that meet \u201coften\u201d.\u00a0 The church is not organized according to market decisions or private elections.\u00a0 Nor does it advocate a bottom-up (decentralization to centralization) process of consensus formation as advocated by Habermas, the free market fundamentalists or any other person that thinks that truth and goodness just are, as a matter of definition, the consensus that forms within any marketplace of ideas, no matter how idealized its conditions are supposed to be.<\/p>\n

      \u201cCommon consent\u201d within the church is when we sustain (or, if needs be, concede to) our church leaders through the obligation-oriented support of acclamation, and then adjust our moral evaluations, market transactions and (dare I say it?) electoral votes to that acclamation.\u00a0 To be sure, the church does not tell us what party to vote for any more than it tells us what store to shop at \u2013 it tells us \u201cwhat\u201d we should and should not purchase or vote for, not \u201cwho\u201d.\u00a0 Common consent is and ought to be broken within the church, however, only in the case of wickedness on the part of our leaders.\u00a0 Personal revelation justifies concession, not resistance to our leaders.\u00a0 Merely disagreeing with them, no matter how well reasoned, justifies neither resistance nor concession \u2013 although the latter is certainly preferable to the former. \u00a0To fully sustain them means to fully support the moral coalition they are leading, regardless of what our own human-reasoning is on the matter.