Toward a Continental Theory of Social Action and Change:
Is Gadamer Friend or Foe?
Introduction
It is a bit of a truism to note that religions and religious groups are defined not only by what they profess to believe, but by the ways in which they engage in action in the world. A Christian, for instance, is not simply one who confesses the Nicene Creed, or who holds to a particular theory of atonement. Rather, the state of “being Christian” implies a way of being in the world, and moreover, a set of actions that are informed by that way of being. My point is that the notion of being a religious person is inextricably linked to praxis. One cannot, on my view, be religious without engaging in some form of action in the world that is informed by one's religiosity. This paper aims to discuss the contours of social action undertaken by religious persons, particularly persons within the Christian religion. Social action, of course, can refer to a wide variety of actions in the world. For the purposes of this analysis, however, I am using the phrase to refer to those actions that are directed at implementing some form or other of progressive social change; for example, working to abolish slavery or institute a constitutional system of civil rights. In other words, I am interested not in all modes of action, but only in those social actions that promote a fuller definition of justice for all persons. From the outset, I will be making two assumptions that will inform my analysis. First, I will assume, as stated above, that social action is something that Christians should involve themselves in, that such actions are in some way connected to their identities as Christians. Second, I will assume that Christian social action, insofar as it is uniquely Christian, should be informed not only by secular social theory, but also by the treasure trove that is the Christian tradition. That is, Christians should bring the resources of their tradition to bear on social action. It is with regard to this second assumption that Hans-Georg Gadamer becomes a useful conversation partner. Gadamer's sweeping analysis in Truth and Method provides us with a way in which the wisdom of the tradition can be brought to bear on our contemporary situation in a way that tends to be disallowed in an Enlightenment way of thinking. Gadamer, in essence, allows us to hold onto and value the Christian tradition.
Thus, if we take seriously the assumptions I put forth, it is apparent to me that a Christian theory model or schema of social action will need two moments. First, of course, it will require a critical moment. Much social action, after all, is premised on the notion that there are elements of the social order that need to be changed. Change, however, can only begin to be effected after a critical moment that has revealed the deficiency of the current way of doing things. We must, in other words, critique what is going wrong in order to move past it into something new. However, if we want Christian social action, this critical moment must be accompanied by an appeal to the tradition. The move we want to make – the move toward critique and change – seems, prima facie, to be undercut by this strong appeal the wisdom of tradition, as it is precisely the tradition that carries along inside itself many of the distortions we wish to critique and change. Thus, the question that faces us is precisely this: how do we hold onto the appreciative move that grounds us in the tradition while at the same time engaging in meaningful critique? Or, does Gadamer put us in a good position with regard to social action, critique, and change? Should the Christian or other religious person rely on Gadamer's analysis of tradition, or does this rule out the possibility of change?
This paper follows a dialectical style that moves from content to application and back again. My analysis will take the following form. First, I will review the key insights proposed by Gadamer in his magisterial work, Truth and Method. Next, I will put Gadamer's theories to the test by applying them to two test cases: first, an easier test case, and second, a more difficult test case. The differences between these two cases will reveal the weaknesses of Gadamer's insights. Thus, we will next conduct a literature review of documents related to the Gadamer-Habermas debate, which will help us understand Gadamer's ambiguous relationship to social action and critique. Informed by this literature review, I will engage in analysis in which I will propose several models through which we might apply Gadamer to social action. Finally, we will revisit the more difficult case to see if we can provide a more nuanced answer.
Literature Review: Truth and Method
According to Gadamer, much of our talk about truth and certainty is misguided in that it has been colonized by a scientific, Enlightenment rationality. The only truth that counts as truth to the modern is that which is indubitable, or objective truth. Following Descartes, scientific-analytic rationality tends to limit truth to that which can be proven, or that which is objectively true. We can describe Enlightenment rationality in terms of two modern ideals: the Cartesian ideal of bracketing all of one's prejudgments and beginning one's quest for knowledge as the tabula rasa, and the Kantian ideal of sapere aude, or “think for yourself.” According to the first ideal, the only way to achieve objective knowledge is to eliminate one's prejudices so as to begin as a blank slate. Only from this blank position, unaffected by the contingencies of one's historical situation, can one make sense of the world. According to the second ideal, one cannot rely on the authority of outside sources. I cannot ground my claim that the sky is blue, for instance, on the authority of a teacher who has told me so. In order to have objective knowledge, I must think for myself and ground my knowledge in experience, rather than the authority of others. Modern objectivism, then, requires autonomous rational agents who do not rely upon or ground their truth claims in anything outside their own rational experience. This objectivistic mode of knowing, in which the explicit goal is to achieve a kind of “God's eye view,” or a view that is wholly independent of any particular observer, has allowed for the objective investigation of numerous aspects of the natural world in such a way that our scientists have gradually achieved not only a greater degree of understanding, but also a greater degree of prediction and control. While this objectivism has undoubtedly been enormously productive in the hard sciences, it has gradually, but persistently, invaded the social sciences, the humanities, and even theology. In the Geisteswissenschaften, distance from the object one is investigating, rather than participation, has slowly become the guiding norm. Just as in the hard sciences, it has become the case that the social scientist or student of the humanities must bracket his or her prejudgments and interests in order for one's studies to be considered objective and, therefore, intellectually legitimate.
Gadamer, however, is highly suspicious of this form of rationality being used within the humanities. He suggests not only that this method of obtaining truth not representative of what we actually do (i.e., we don't start out from the Cartesian point of doubting everything, as the tabula rasa), but it is furthermore impossible. “Is not all human existence,” Gadamer asks, “even the freest, limited and qualified in various ways?” All human experience, he argues, takes place within the context of historical particularity. Even the wisest among us cannot bracket all her prejudgments so as to arrive at this completely blank state that exists, somehow, outside of history. There is no such thing as the God's-eye view or the “view from nowhere.” Because of this, there is no such thing as the objective truth idealized by the hard sciences. “Reason,” he argues, “exists for us only in concrete, historical terms – i.e., it is not its own master but remains constantly dependent on the given circumstances in which it operates.” All knowledge, then, is contextual. Human reason is not able, on his view, to rise above historical “thrownness,” to borrow Heidegger's term, so as to achieve truly objective knowledge. Reason itself takes place within concrete historical circumstances. Wish as we might, the situation cannot be different, for human persons cannot reason themselves outside their historical contexts. The human situation, in which one cannot get outside of one's context and in which one is determined far more by one's prejudgments then by one's conscious judgments, is what Gadamer refers to as the “history of effects.” Our understanding is always already affected by prejudgments and prejudices that precede us and are carried by the tradition in which we partake. We are always affected by the history that precedes us, even when we do not realize it. “This, precisely, is the power of history over finite human consciousness, namely that it prevails even where faith in method leads one to deny one's historicity.” Scientific methodology therefore does not free us from the bonds of history, and thus even knowledge we naively take to be objective is, in fact, thoroughly affected by prejudgments.
What Gadamer describes in bringing to light the history of effects sounds nightmarish to the modern sensibility. After all, if the only way of having knowledge is to rise above the effects of history so as to be objective, as the Enlightenment would have us believe, then Gadamer's history of effects, insofar as it is descriptively accurate, would seem to rule out having any knowledge at all. Here, Gadamer again points to the unreasonableness of the modern expectation of objectivity. The Enlightenment, he argues, has developed a “prejudice against prejudice” wherein prejudices are prima facie invalid sources of knowledge. In other words, prejudgments cannot be considered valid unless they have been submitted to the power of reason. Gadamer's point, however, is that not all prejudices are invalid. On the contrary, a good number of our prejudices are completely reasonable, and furthermore, some of our most profound knowledge comes not from personal experience or rational analysis, but from prejudgments that are passed down or imparted to us by tradition. I possess the prejudgment, for example, that I should not drink poison. I did not come to this judgment on my own through either experience or rational analysis. Rather, this knowledge is a prejudice that has been passed down to me – probably by my parents – and, in that sense, precedes me. Gadamer would argue that such a prejudice, far from occluding real knowledge, is actually productive of knowledge. One does not have to loose oneself from the fetters of such productive prejudices in order to be a rational person. Instead, one may accept the validity of such prejudgments on the authority of the tradition. “Authority,” according to Gadamer, “has nothing to do with blind obedience to commands... but rather with knowledge.” It is perfectly rational to accept one's prejudices, especially those that are mediated through a trustworthy authority, as true and valid, precisely because authorities tend to have greater knowledge on some issues than I. I trust, on this view, the scientists who have studied the effects of poison on the human body and have determined that it is not fit for human consumption. My following this authority, then, is not blind obedience brought about by a relationship of domination, but rather my humble acknowledgment that the authority mediates knowledge rather than deception. “Thus,” Gadamer concludes, “acknowledging authority is always connected with the idea that what the authority says is not irrational and arbitrary but can, in principle, be discovered to be true.” Authority, then, is powerful, but not without limits. It would thus be reasonable on Gadamer’s view to trust in a scientific authority that tells me not to ingest poison, but it might not be quite as reasonable to trust an authority that tells me that all Renaissance artists were hacks, as this is not something that, in principle, I could discover to be true. Gadamer’s rehabilitation of authority thus calls for profound humility in the face of those who know better than I, but not, by any means, stupidity. We are thus freed on this view to trust in those prejudgments that have been imparted to us by wise, legitimate authorities, but we are at the same time by no means bound to unquestioningly accept anything and everything an authority figure or group says.
Gadamer then takes this a step further, for authority subsists not only in knowledgeable individuals, but also and especially in traditions. His rehabilitation of tradition is based upon the premise that tradition is not simply a deposit of beliefs and practices from ages past, but represents the living consensus of knowledgeable individuals over time. “Even the most genuine and pure tradition,” he argues, “does not persist because of the inertia of what once existed. It needs to be affirmed, embraced, and cultivated.” Tradition persists, then, not simply because it is what we have always done or because we have not devised new ways of doing things. Rather, tradition only continues insofar as it continues to be affirmed throughout history. This means that traditions only continue on because they continue to have meaning for the lives of people who participate in them; insofar as the tradition has no contemporary relevance, it is no longer a living tradition. Tradition, then, is not a monolithic structure of domination that crushes the individual will, but rather something that arises, over time, out of consensus. What we call tradition is the result of knowledgeable people weighing in on important social issues, and indeed, on these people agreeing with one another over time. The prejudgments passed down to us through tradition are, thus, neither irrational nor arbitrary. Instead, they represent the wisdom of those who have come before us. Thus, accepting something as true on the authority of the tradition is not irrational, at least insofar as one trusts in the wisdom of one's predecessors. Tradition, for Gadamer, is not an authority that one follows blindly, but rather a source of knowledge that has developed over the centuries and which shapes the fore-understanding of all human persons. Gadamer holds that we can be confident in the wisdom of the tradition because it represents a vast consensus and is, thus, trustworthy. It is pointless to attempt to abstract oneself out of this tradition, not only because such an endeavor would be doomed to failure, but because one's tradition actually is productive of knowledge.
Thus, for Gadamer, it is impossible to arrive at the kind of objective, absolute knowledge idealized by the Enlightenment. All human persons are situated in a history of effects that precedes them. As such, they are imparted, quite independently of their rational appropriation, with a panoply of prejudices that guide they way they experience the world. We are thoroughly traditioned. Gadamer tells us that “our usual relationship to the past is not characterized by distancing and freeing ourselves from tradition... it is always part of us.” The fact that we cannot get outside the prejudices imparted to us by tradition is not, as the Enlightenment would have us believe, a source of anxiety, but rather a source of great comfort. The tradition holds authority – its judgments are not arbitrary, bur represent a vast consensus. Because this consensus is not bound to a particular historical period, but has rather taken shape over years, even centuries, tradition does not typically suffer from temporal provincialism. In fact, the longer a tradition continues to be affirmed, the more weight it generally has. We can, for instance, have great conviction about a matter the tradition affirmed for centuries, but have considerably less conviction about a relatively recent issue that has not been examined over time. Thus, one can take comfort in the fact that the tradition is generally not deceptive, but in fact grounds most of our unexamined prejudgments. So, instead of having to abstract ourselves from the tradition and become blank slates in order to have knowledge, we can actually be confident in the validity of the wealth of knowledge we already possess through our prejudgments.
Test Case One: An Easier Case
By utilizing a fairly straight-forward test case, it becomes readily apparent how Gadamer's schema, particularly his tripartite rehabilitation of tradition, authority, and prejudice, can inform help to inform Christian actors. This first case I will term the “easier case” because it regards an extreme situation, one in which there is little ambiguity as to the proper Christian response. Imagine if you will that it is the year 1992 and you are in Waco, Texas. At a coffee shop, you strike up a conversation one day with a shaggy-haired man with glasses. He tells you his name is David Koresh and that he is the final prophet of God, sent to herald the end times. He then proceeds to tell you that he is God's new messiah, the successor to Jesus, and that it is the duty of all Christians to recognize this fact and worship him. How do you respond to this situation? Is there a way to dismiss Koresh's claim to messiahhood without relying on either a knee-jerk reaction or an objectivistic way of knowing?
The Gadamerian might respond to this situation by appealing to the wisdom of the tradition. Koresh’s claim to messiahhood is not incorrect simply because it is an innovation, but rather because it does not correspond to the consensus represented by the tradition. Over the centuries, the Christian tradition has come to the wide-spread agreement that Jesus of Nazareth represents the one true Savior of humanity. This tradition, again, is not arbitrary, but is rather authoritative insofar as it represents the thinking of millions of Christians throughout the ages, from the greatest of the theologians to the laity. This belief that Christ is the only true messiah is also not tied to any particular historical period, but has rather been affirmed by Christian from the first century up until today. Thus, this authoritative tradition is not to be crassly cast aside, especially when it regards a doctrine so central to the Christian faith. It may in fact be the case that Koresh is the messiah, that God is doing something completely new in this person that defies all human understanding. However, as far as the tradition is concerned, Koresh’s claim simply does not fit with centuries of the Church’s experience. As this is the case, Koresh’s claim should be dismissed, not because it is objectively false in some scientifically testable manner, but because it does not cohere to the wisdom of the tradition of which he claims to be a part. In other words, the tradition has imparted us with a coherent vision of Jesus as the messiah, a vision in which David Koresh's claim simply does not fit. We can be considerably more confident in the authority of the tradition than in that of Koresh, not simply because the tradition consists in more than a single individual, but because this vision of messiahhood has been affirmed throughout the ages and continues to be affirmed.
Test Case Two: A More Difficult Case
As we saw above, Gadamer's writings can be immediately helpful in certain extreme situations that call for social action and decision-making. When one is called upon to determine the orthodoxy or correctness of an idea or movement, one can draw upon the consensus of the tradition as it has evolved over time. What determines our practice in the present is the tradition that has come up over time and which has informed us in our socialization. In other words, to be formed in a religious tradition such as Christianity gives one the resources to discern those elements that are consonant with the tradition as well as those that are dissonant with it. What about, however, those areas that are slightly more ambiguous? What about ideas that do not provoke the immediate, knee-jerk reaction of the apocalyptic cult or the wildly heretical doctrine? Is Gadamer's schema as helpful in dealing with these more ambiguous areas in which social action is warranted?
In order to answer this question, we will use a less straight-forward case study, which I shall call the “more difficult” case. Imagine that you are a prominent church official who is often called upon to give the “Christian” viewpoint on germane social issues. Further imagine that the nation is embroiled in a debate on whether to allow or disallow gay marriage, marriages between either two men or two women. A progressive social group approaches you to request your support. The situation clearly calls for social action on the part of the church official, but what sort of action is called for? How do you respond to this situation?
Let us apply the same Gadamerian reasoning we applied to the former test case. If we refer to the Christian tradition, we learn that Christians have, over time, consistently opposed marriages that are not between a man and a woman. No matter how we shade the issue, no matter how we interpret scripture passages that might relate to this issue, the fact remains that, throughout history, the tradition has tended to fall on the side of disallowing gay marriage. The consensus, in other words, has always been to limit marriages to those between one man and one woman, and this consensus seems to be just as authoritative as the consensus we saw on the messiahhood of Christ. Thus, in order to keep with tradition, we would seem to be required to hold to this position. After all, we do not seem to have warrant to do otherwise. The tradition, as conceived by Gadamer, is not a set of arbitrary decisions, but rather a consensus on issues related to our life together that has arisen over thousands of years. The tradition is as it is, in other words, because of a vast intersubjective agreement over time. Thus, if we decide to follow Gadamer's schema, our prima facie position would seem to be the conservative position, upholding the tradition over and against any innovation or progressivism. The tradition would seem to call for the church official to decline support to the progressive group, if not actively oppose their endeavors. Of course, the church official may decide to depart from the tradition, but insofar as he or she does this, the official loses his or her appeal to intersubjective agreement, which was precisely that which would have given the official's position force. Without the backing of the tradition, on Gadamer's view, the church official is but a single voice crying in the wilderness, over against a great “cloud of witnesses” that has achieved an authoritative consensus.
If it is in fact the case, as it would seem from the above example, that Gadamer's thinking leads us inevitably toward conservatism, then is there a place for social action and change within Gadamer's thought? As we saw in the first case, Gadamer gives us a powerful way in which to bring the wisdom of the tradition to bear on social situations. I still maintain that we want the tradition's wisdom, but we also want a way to critique that wisdom when it seems to be standing in the way of justice. However, the question soon comes to the fore, “How is it that we can determine when the tradition itself, the tradition in which we have been socialized, is itself unjust? From where can one make such a judgment?” Is there a way to understand or even rehabilitate Gadamer so that he might help us to hold onto the tradition on the one hand and enact needed social change on the other? In what follows, I will engage in an examination of texts related to the Gadamer-Habermas debate. This examination, which will include both the primary documents of the debate as well as the work of later commentators, will shed light on the issue of Gadamer's relationship to critique and social action. Following this examination, I will propose a number of models through which we might understand Gadamer's relation to the possibility for social action and change.
Literature Review: The Gadamer-Habermas Debate
The Gadamer-Habermas debate consists of an exchange of essays between the two scholars, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Jürgen Habermas, beginning in the late 1960s. Although the themes of the debate present themselves in numerous books and articles, I will be confining my analysis to the following four primary sources: “A Review of Gadamer's Truth and Method” and “The Hermeneutic Claim to Universality” by Habermas and “On the Scope and Function of Hermeneutical Reflection” and “Hermeneutics and Social Science” by Gadamer. After examining these primary sources, I will examine several secondary authors who have offered their interpretations of the debate. These analyses will allow us to come to a better understanding of how we might relate critique and change to Gadamer's system.
Primary Sources
In his critique of and response to Gadamer's Truth and Method, Habermas offers two important insights. First, he says, “Hermeneutic consciousness remains incomplete as long as it does not include a reflection upon the limits of hermeneutic understanding.” Habermas' primary critique of Gadamer's hermeneutics – especially his rehabilitation of prejudice, authority, and tradition – is that it cannot be universalized. What are these limits he proposes? “The experience of a hermeneutical limitation,” he says, “refers to specifically incomprehensible expressions.” What Habermas is referring to here is the notion of systematically distorted communication. In many circumstances, Habermas argues, the tradition imparts to us prejudices that are not based upon consensus that is entered into freely, but rather consensus gained through deception and domination.
Take, for example, the ideology of male domination. Women have been systematically excluded from public discourse throughout much of history; this is not a rhetorical point, but a matter of fact. Prior to the twentieth century, American women were forbidden from voting. At many points in this pre-suffrage era, both men and women were convinced that this arrangement was best, that voting was a right proper only to men. Both men and women in this situation seem to be giving their consent to the social situation, but what appears to be the genuine consensus of tradition may, in all actuality, be merely the consensus of men. Because of this, our communication is distorted insofar as it communicates an vast agreement that may not actually exist and in fact excludes many. This is precisely the power of ideology, that even the women in this situation may think that their social status is right and natural, when in fact they had no voice in the consensus that formed this situation. Thus the problem, according to Habermas, is deeper than a false consensus. “Pseudo-communication,” he argues, “generates a system of misunderstandings that cannot be recognized as such under the appearance of false consensus.” In other words, because the false consensus of a distorted tradition is imparted as prejudice, those who are within the tradition are often unaware of the false consensus as such. Thus, within the context of a society dominated by males, for instance, it is difficult to see the problem of gender bias. The consensus presents itself as genuine and becomes part of the fore-understanding. “The pre-judgmental structure of understanding,” he writes, “not only prohibits us from questioning that factually established consensus which underlies our misunderstanding and incomprehension, but makes such an undertaking appear senseless.” Not only is there no apparent way to question the validity of a false consensus mediated through tradition, but there does not seem to be a way to identify such false consensuses at all. Thus, we seem to be left at the mercy of systematically distorted communication. There is no place outside the tradition from which to identify and critique such distortions. We seem to be caught.
Habermas' critique of Gadamer, then, is that hermeneutics is an inadequate way of explaining understanding because of the distortions carried within tradition itself. Insofar as there is false consensus within the tradition that is perpetuated through distorted communication, Habermas holds that there is no way to become aware of this distortion from within the tradition. In a world of perfect communication, free of ideology and pretense, Gadamer's schema would be wholly accurate. But in a world plagued by systematically distorted communication, we cannot rely on Gadamer alone, as he seems to lead us ever back toward the wisdom of the tradition, whether or not that wisdom represents a genuine consensus.
Habermas' second key insight is related to the first. All human activity, according to Habermas, is guided by one of three cognitive interests: the technical interest of the scientific sphere, the practical interest of the hermeneutical-historical sphere, and the emancipatory interest of the critical sphere. Although Habermas deploys this trilogy of cognitive interests in defense of his own schema of communicative theory, what it noteworthy is how the concept of interests relates to his critique of Gadamer. The technical interest, for instance, tends to drive us toward the ideals of efficiency, productivity, and technical control over the world. Habermas notes that the technical interest can often come to dominate over the other two, leading to actions guided solely by efficiency and not by understanding or emancipation. The crucial point here is that our ways of interpreting texts and interpreting the world are never innocent or value-neutral; they are always guided by one of the three primary interests. Thus, insofar as the consensuses of one’s tradition have been influenced by a technical interest rather than an emancipatory interest, it is clear that one’s prejudices and prejudgments, even those mediated by the tradition, are not value-neutral, but may in fact be influenced by a drive toward efficiency far more than a liberative ideal. We ought to be suspicious, on this view, of the interests that stand behind the wisdom of traditions, for such wisdom may or may not be driving us toward liberation. Habermas demands, then, that we unmask the interests involved in the formation of our fore-conceptions, for only by understanding the interest at play in a particular prejudice can we begin to move toward the emancipatory sphere, which is what Habermas wants. Thus, the critique here is that Gadamer while Gadamer does invite us to understand the sources of our prejudices, he does not equip us to unmask the potentially harmful ideologies that shape those prejudices.
So, if Habermas is correct and many of the prejudices that are imparted to us by tradition are the result of systemic distortion, how is it that we are able to go about unmasking those distortions and naming the interests involved in their perpetuation? Habermas suggests that human reason possesses a quality that transcends the particularities of historicity and allows it to engage in meaningful critique. For Gadamer, according to Habermas, “on-going tradition and hermeneutic inquiry merge to a single point.” In other words, our appropriation of the tradition is tantamount to the tradition perpetuating itself. Our understanding of the tradition and of the prejudgments it has imparted to us is none other than a moment in the tradition's continuation, such that our understanding means entering into the consensus. Habermas, on the other hand, holds that “the reflected appropriation of tradition breaks up the nature-like [naturwuchsige] substance of tradition and alters the position of the subject in it.” The power of reflection in essence looses the bonds of tradition by allowing one to see one's prejudgments as prejudgments. Once they are revealed as such, one is no longer bound to follow them. “In grasping the genesis of the tradition from which it proceeds and on which it turns back, reflection shakes the dogmatism of life-practices.” Once one understands where one's prejudgments have come from, one is freed from their tyranny. In this way, for Habermas, one is able to effectively get outside of systematically distorted communication. From there, one can begin to engage in critique and to unmask the interests at play within the tradition.
In responding to Habermas' criticisms, Gadamer takes quite the opposite approach. Gadamer observes that “the thing which hermeneutics teaches us is to see through the dogmatism of asserting an opposition and separation between the ongoing, natural 'tradition' and the reflective appropriation of it.” Precisely the two instances Habermas wants to separate – the tradition itself and one's appropriation of it – Gadamer fuses into a single moment. Habermas' position, according to Gadamer, ignores the fact that the one who is doing the reflecting is herself subject to the history of effects that precedes her. The reflective moment cannot and does not somehow transcend the historical moment. Even in the act of reflection and critical appropriation, one's understanding enters into play. Habermas thus constructs an objective relationship between the tradition and the subject. “In this objectivism,” Gadamer argues, “the understander is seen ... not in relationship to the hermeneutical situation and the constant operativeness of history in his (sic) own consciousness, but in such a way as to imply that his (sic) own understanding does not enter into the event.” Thus, what Habermas saw as huge problem – i.e., the fusion of tradition and the reflective appropriation of it – Gadamer sees as a necessity, for there even reflection does not get the subject outside of his or her own understanding.
Gadamer's critique of Habermas, then, is that Habermas is hopelessly idealistic with regard to the power of reason. Habermas's accusation is that hermeneutics “bangs helplessly, so to speak, from within the walls of tradition.” This critique only makes sense, however, if there we can conceive of such thing as “outside” one's tradition; the complaint of the limitedness of the inside only makes sense with reference to an outside. However, Gadamer wants to argue that if tradition represents the medium of all human understanding, then there can be nothing outside. “With this area of what lies outside the realm of human understanding and human understandings (our world) hermeneutics is not concerned,” he replies. Habermas' critique thus carries little weight because it relies on the existence of a reflective mode that transcends human understanding in tradition, something Gadamer believes to be impossible. Thus, Habermas is yet another victim of Enlightenment rationality insofar as he believes it is possible to have objective knowledge through our reflective acts. On final analysis, Gadamer's rejoinder to Habermas is thus twofold: first, he argues that rational reflection cannot elevate finite human persons above their historicity; second, he holds that critical theory, in seeking to unmask hidden ideologies, itself partakes in an unexamined ideology. “Insofar as [critical theory] seeks to penetrate the masked interests which infect public opinion, it implies its own freedom from any ideology; and that means in turn that it enthrones its own norms and ideals as self-evident and absolute.” Just as the elements of communication Habermas wants to critique are not value-neutral, so also critical theory itself is not value-neutral, but operates out of its own set of cognitive interests. Insofar as these interests guide and shape critical theory, critique will never be able to transcend cultural particularities so as to be as objective as Habermas seems to want.
Gadamer, of course, does not deny the existence of systematically distorted communization. However, for Gadamer, the critique of such distortions is not something that takes place outside of the hermeneutical act, but is rather fully incorporated back into the art of understanding. Gadamer's point is that any unmasking of ideologies takes place in language, in the context of a particular tradition, not in some transcendent realm of emancipatory reflection. False consensuses surely do exist. However, these false consensuses are not real consensuses. Thus, the goal of hermeneutics in the event of systematically distorted communication is not to subvert the tradition, but to lead us all past misunderstandings back into true consensus. Thus, for Gadamer, critique is not something that takes place outside the hermeneutic enterprise. “This is precisely the noble task of hermeneutics: to make expressly conscious what separates us as well as what brings us together.” Gadamer sees not only an appreciative stance in hermeneutics, but also a corrective stance. In helping one foreground one's prejudices, hermeneutics equips one to discern where the real consensuses are. As such, Gadamer's move seems to be the assimilation of Habermas' emphasis on critique, although not his exaltation of reason, back into hermeneutics. The hermeneutic web becomes ever wider so as to encompass both the appreciative and the critical. The question, of course, is whether this account will allow for the kind of critique Habermas wants.
Secondary Sources
The Gadamer-Habermas debate has been the subject of much scholarship over the past several decades and numerous scholars have offered their views on the nature and outcome of the debate. One of the most important commentators on the debate is Paul Ricoeur. According to Ricoeur, hermeneutics and critical theory present fundamentally different gestures. The gesture of hermeneutics is one an “avowal of the historical conditions to which all human understanding is subsumed under the reign of finitude,” whereas the gesture of critical theory is an “act of defiance... relentlessly repeated and turned against... distortions of human communication.” The debate between Gadamer and Habermas arises from the fact that both hermeneutics and critical theory claim to be the fundamental philosophical gesture. According to Ricoeur, however, these two gestures are not wholly incommensurable, although he is wary of any effort to combine critical theory and hermeneutics into a single “super-system.” Neither theory “wins” and gets to assimilate the other into itself. Each theory speaks out a different place; nevertheless, Ricoeur believes that each theory has crucial insights to offer the other. To this end, Ricoeur proposes both a critical hermeneutics and a hermeneutical reflection on critique. With regard to the theory of critical hermeneutics, Ricoeur offers four areas in which critique mind find a place within hermeneutics of which I would like to lift up one. He suggests that distanciation, which hermeneutics tends to view as a kind of fall from grace, can actually be productive. Distanciation is not, as it would seem prima facie, the antithesis of understanding, but is rather one of the primary conditions of understanding. “The moment of distanciation,” Ricoeur argues, “is implied by fixation in writing and all comparable phenomena in the sphere of the transmission of discourse.” When a message is fixed in writing, for example, a distance is generated, both between the author and her text and between the text and its interpreters. The same is true of tradition. The truth contained within tradition is not immediate, but is rather mediated through history. Thus, insofar as our prejudices are mediated to us through tradition, there is a distanciation at play. Distanciation, then, is the very condition of mediation through tradition and hermeneutical understanding, though only in a limited sense. According to Ricoeur, this sense of distanciation, insofar as it is only a moment in the “belonging” gesture of hermeneutics, does indeed allow for critique to take place within the hermeneutical system. In this sense, critique has its moment, but only within the hermeneutical enterprise. With regard to the hermeneutical reflection on critique, Ricoeur suggests that the emancipatory interest Habermas proposes as integral to the critical social sciences should not be considered a distinct interest. Instead, the cognitive interest in emancipation takes place in the same realm as the historical-hermeneutic sciences. In other words, emancipation cannot and does not take place in an arena apart from the tradition. “The task of the hermeneutics of tradition,” Ricoeur writes, “is to remind the critique of ideology that man (sic) can project his (sic) emancipation and anticipate an unlimited and unconstrained communication only on the basis of the creative reinterpretation of cultural heritage.” Even if we take for granted the notion that all communication within tradition is distorted, it is only on the basis of this experience that we can project any other possibilities. The building blocks of emancipation, in essence, are none other than the components of one's tradition itself. Emancipation, then, begins and ends in the hermeneutical sphere of communication. Thus, emancipation does not function as a cognitive interest distinct of the practical interest of hermeneutics; rather, the two occupy the same cognitive realm.
A later commentator, Matthew Foster, notes that Gadamer and Habermas have much in common. Foster notes that Habermas' objection to Gadamer's hermeneutics is not complete and that he draws on hermeneutical insights in many places. In fact, Habermas qualifies even his most powerful objections with the Gadamerian notion that even critique is inextricably tied to the historical context in which it takes place. Nevertheless, Foster insists that Habermas' critical theory and Gadamer's hermeneutics are, on final analysis, incompatible. “It is not possible,” he asserts,
To reconcile Habermas' selective appreciation of Gadamer's hermeneutical perspective with the over-all intent of critical theory, which is to go beyond hermeneutics... in terms of acquiring some kind of transcendental foundation which philosophically can assure us of the validity of critique.
Although Habermas claims he wants to hang onto Gadamer's hermeneutical insights, Foster asserts that his desire to be grounded in tradition is ultimately incompatible with his notion that reflection can transcend cultural and historical particularity. In essence, Foster thinks Habermas wants Gadamer's theory without its ontological component. However, for Gadamer, this ontology is not a mere afterthought, but is the basis of the hermeneutical enterprise. In disregarding this fundamental ontology, Gadamer thinks that Habermas runs the risk of making a false claim to universality in critical theory. Thus, for Foster, Habermas' critique of Gadamer suffers from the problem of being self-contradictory. He simultaneously holds to the notions of effective history and critique that transcends history, much to his detriment. As such, Foster believes that Gadamer presents the more coherent and convincing theory.
Susan Shapiro has considerable sympathy for Habermas' position in the debate and cogently exegetes the notion of systematic distortion. Common misunderstanding is no problem for hermeneutic theory. Misunderstandings can always be resolved, Gadamer holds, because any misunderstanding always presupposes a deeper consensus. In other words, there can be no misunderstanding unless there is a common understanding to which this misunderstandfing can be juxtaposed. This common understanding, or consensus, will eventually be able to correct the local misunderstanding. Systematic distortions, on the other hand, are a problem for hermeneutics precisely because they are systematic. Shapiro holds that systematic distortions is dangerous because they are universally deceptive. “If the participants in communication were aware of the distortion,” she argues, “it would no longer be a systematic distortion.” Thus, in principle, it is not possible for those within the systematically distorted speech situation to know that they are subject to systematic distortions. Gadamer's intra-hermeneutical sense of critique is therefore inadequate to correct the problem of systematic distortions. Shapiro thus disagrees with Gadamer that the tradition can “self-correct” through dialogue and consensus because, as Habermas has noted, “it is the very participants within the dialogue or speech situation who cannot recognize its systematically distorted character,” and thus, “interpretive activity may itself produce and carry both positive and negative effects.” Gadamer's hermeneutical enterprise, which certainly does help us to come to understanding, nevertheless carries within it the potential for distortions, and insofar as these distortions are systemic, they will continue to be perpetuated unnoticed and uncorrected. Shapiro, however, moves beyond simple affirmation of Habermas' critique to level a critique of her own at Habermas. She argues that Habermas' critique of ideology suffers from a particular systemic distortion of its own. Insofar as Habermas is interested only in logical language, in which the argument with the strongest logical force always prevails, he marginalizes the power of persuasion represented by rhetoric. After all, the regulative norm of ideal communication, for Habermas, is that communication that is “pure” and free of influence by various rhetorical interests. Shapiro calls for a rehabilitation of rhetoric as a valid form of communication. In light of this rehabilitation, she sees that Habermas falls on his own sword of systematic distortion. Instead of appealing to logocentric language as the regulative ideal, Shapiro suggests that rhetoric offers a “place for both the recognition and correction of systematic distortions in such as way that the critique of ideologies will not fall back into enlightenment theory.”
In his interpretation of the Gadamer-Habermas debate, W.S.K. Cameron posits that the two thinkers are not so much proposing incompatible theories as talking past one another. After giving a brief exposition on Gadamer's hermeneutics, Cameron suggests that Habermas offers three general critiques of this system: Gadamer de-differentiates the oppositions between reason and authority, understanding and agreement, and ideal and material determinants. For Habermas, it is dangerous to collapse these crucial oppositions. If authority represents the consensus that precedes me mediated through tradition, then it would seem to be impossible for persons to express creative or critical thought if the conversation is bounded by consensus. According to Cameron, the de-differentiations noted above are likely to lead to political and social conservatism. Because the tradition is our only source of conviction, we cannot be confident “which developments are progressive. There can thus be no rational moral basis to act for change – arbitrary action is the only alternative to the status quo.” Thus, the danger, according to Habermas, is that hermeneutics either requires us to accept the tradition wholesale or else engage in arbitrary actions. Cameron notes, however, that the situation is not actually so dire, for as Habermas has argued, it is the case the traditions have been critiqued. Insofar as critique has already taken place and traditions have indeed been changed, there does seem to be a sense in which the status quo is not inevitable. Cameron, however, argues that Habermas' critique of Gadamer – namely, that hermeneutics will always lead to conservatism and never to critique – is based on a misunderstanding of the latter's position. Habermas' fear, of course, is that the tradition can become monolithic and dogmatic such that there is no place for critique. Cameron reads Gadamer, however, as asserting that all understanding is provisional because “it can neither be built part by part out of immediate insights, nor secured all at once in an infinite vision of the whole.” In other words, the authoritative understanding mediated through tradition can never consider itself the objective or even final understanding. It must always be open to revision insofar as it is part of a history of interpretation. Thus, far from calling on us to shut our eyes to the distortions of tradition, Cameron reads Gadamer as encouraging us to be on guard against false or distorted prejudices. We must always be open to the possibility that our prejudgments are wrong; it is this openness that is the condition of our receiving the tradition. In the end, Cameron argues that, despite his critique of Gadamer, Habermas is a fallibilist in that he recognizes the possibility of his theories being wrong in ways he might not even conceive. Thus, he reads Habermas, in spite of his elevation of human reason, as willing to accept his limitations. Due to this fallibilist leaning, Cameron's final point is that “Habermas and Gadamer have developed two sides of a common account.” This account, he thinks, incorporates both truth and method. It includes both Habermas' move toward social analysis and critique and Gadamer's move toward the finitude of human reason. In essence, each thinker needs the other for his theory to be complete.
Analysis
As is obvious from the survey above, opinions on the outcome of the Gadamer-Habermas debate differ widely. Some, like Ricoeur, hold the position that both hermeneutics and the critique of ideology are distinct theories that speak out of fundamentally different gestures. Others, like Foster, hold that either Gadamer or Habermas “wins” the debate, and thus, the insights of the “loser” are assimilated into the system of the “winner.” Cameron offers the intriguing proposal that both thinkers are actually saying the same thing, but are approaching the issue from opposite sides. Cameron marriage of Gadamerianism and Habermasianism is precisely what Ricoeur believed to be the most ill-advised approach to the debate, as he himself holds that there can be no “super-system” that includes both. Our goal here is not to adjudicate between the commentators so as to determine, first, which commentator offers the best account, or second, whether Gadamer or Habermas wins the debate. Rather, the Gadamer-Habermas debate itself and the commentary on the debate provide for us numerous insights which we can use to better understand how we might relate Gadamer's hermeneutics to social action and change. Thus, what I want to do now is to offer my own interpretation of the relationship between hermeneutics and critique by way of offering three potential options.
The obvious and easiest option, it would seem, would be to simply disregard Gadamer. From what we have seen in the more difficult test case, Gadamer does not seem to be immediately compatible with the kinds of social action and change that are clearly desired by most activists these days. Social activists, even Christian social activists, desire immediate, concrete changes that will bring about more justice for all persons. At his most conservative, Gadamer will tell us that such social change, insofar as it is not consonant with the wisdom of the tradition, cannot be grounded in the tradition, and should therefore by eschewed. If we push Gadamer to his most progressive, he will still tell us that any innovations in the present (such as allowing GLBT marriages) do not become part of the tradition overnight. Instead, the community must weigh in on the issue and consider it over hundreds of years before it becomes clear that social innovations, even those that bring about profound justice, are really part of the tradition. Tradition, after all, is not really tradition if it is temporally provincial. In essence, there must be consensus for an idea or action to be incorporated into the tradition. So, Gadamer seems to force us to a standstill. We can either accept the status quo or else wait for the community to come to a new consensus over a long period of time. This is simply unacceptable to any activist who wants change not only in the future, but in the present time as well. Thus, the question again is, why hold onto Gadamer?
On my view, Gadamer’s insights are too valuable to abandon. If Gadamer is correct in his theory of effective history, then we cannot uproot ourselves from the traditions in which we have been socialized, even when those traditions prove burdensome. We are grounded in tradition and Gadamer helps us develop a healthy respect for this. Yet, I would assert, and Gadamer would probably agree, that respect for the tradition is not equivalent to blind allegiance. My argument is that our respect for the tradition must include not only an appreciative moment, but also a critical moment. This is where Habermas’ critique becomes useful. Habermas, as we have seen, argues for the importance of the critical moment and takes seriously the degree to which the very traditions we are socialized in carry within themselves systematic distortions. Habermas, on my view, goes too far in his exposition of the critical moment. He seems to argue that, once we become fully aware of the prejudgments that shape our life-world, these prejudices no longer function as prejudices. This is mistaken. Identifying a prejudice as prejudice does not automatically dismantle its power. If, for instance, I engage in critical self-examination and discover I have a prejudice against the poor, this epiphany will not necessarily result in my engaging in more charitable actions. In other words, identifying this prejudice as prejudice does not remove it from the system of prejudgments that inform my thinking, but merely foregrounds it. Insofar as pre-judgments precede us and are handed down through tradition, they are deeply ingrained and cannot be rationalized away. Habermas assumes, to a certain extent, that the critical thinker can “step outside” the prejudices mediated by tradition to attain a purer mode of thought. This is simply impractical. Thus, we need Gadamer's appreciative move that takes seriously the historicity and finitude of human reason, not only for its own sake, but as a foil against the tendency of critique to set itself up as an objective enterprise that rises above all prejudgments. I do not believe it is wise to have critique without the Gadamerian moment, for such critique will always run the risk of being seduced by Enlightenment ideals. We still need both moments. Thus, disregarding Gadamer completely does not seem to be the best option. By the same token, I do not believe that hermeneutics can be absorbed into Habermas' critical theory. If we are to have critique at all, it must be grounded in hermeneutics, not vice versa. Gadamer's ontology must be the ground of our interpretive activities, not simply a corollary. Even in critique, the tradition remains the center from which we move. Thus, I believe those models that try to assimilate hermeneutics into critical theory are flawed.
The second option is what we will call the “true message” model, a model that holds to a weak version of inner-critique within hermeneutics. This model would hold that there is something of a canon-within-the-canon within traditions, or a deep consensus that underlies all potential ambiguities. The “canon” of the Christian tradition, for instance, contains a wealth of materials, including both statements that support slavery and those that seem to call for its abolition. How, then, are we to interpret the Christian tradition with regard to slavery? The “true message” model would argue that there is a canon within the Christian canon, that underlying all particular statements, there is a general essence that comprises the true canon. We might take the canon within the Christian canon to be “love God and love your neighbor.” Thus, all statements and propositions within the tradition must be interpreted through the lens of this unifying essence. On this view, the tradition has always been in favor of just treatment for all human persons, as treating one another justly would seem to be derivative of the injunction to love one's neighbor as oneself. Thus, even if there has not traditionally been de facto support for the abolition of slavery and equality of all human persons, there has always been support in principle. Since the deepest insights of the tradition are those that support love and justice, we are thus able to move beyond those historical instances in which this love and justice has been denied to certain classes and groups of people. The extension of this deep message to larger and larger groups of people is part of the natural evolution of the tradition. Thus, when we want to appeal to the tradition to engage in social action and to enact social change, we are able to do so by appealing to the deep, “true” message of tradition that underlies even the vilest of systemic distortions that have appeared in history. The prophet, then, is not one who comes from outside to criticize the tradition, but rather the one who is most profoundly formed by the tradition. Formed and informed by the deepest message of the tradition, the prophet is the one who calls the rest of to recognize how this deep message is meant not only for a core group, but for all. Critique, then, is not offered from some place outside the tradition, but rather emerges out of the deepest consensuses of the tradition itself. The fundamental, core beliefs of the community become the litmus test for every other aspect of the tradition. The “deep consensus,” then, becomes the regulative norm.
Habermas, I think, would offer a devastating critique to this model, for if we reduce the many facets of the Christian tradition to a canon-within-the-canon, we perform an ahistorical move. In other words, reducing the Christian tradition to “love God and love your neighbor” makes it seem that the tradition was always on the side of just treatment for all persons, even if most have not recognized this fact throughout history. The “true message” model exonerates the tradition by claiming that it has a pure, undefiled essence that supports social action and change. In essence, this model would claim that the tradition has supported particular social justices all along, even if this has not always been readily apparent. However, Habermas would argue, this is simply not the case. Letting the tradition off the hook in this matter ignores the problem of systemic distortion. On Habermas' view, the entire tradition, even those elements of it that seem unequivocally to promote justice for all, have been systemically distorted throughout history. Thus, the deep insights of the tradition are also subject to systematic distortion. The notion that one must “love one's neighbor,” for instance, might never have been intended to apply to anyone but adult males. If it is indeed the case that even the deep consensuses of a tradition can be systematically distorted pseudo-consensuses, then the “true message” can no longer function as a regulative norm. Thus, this model fails.
As it was made apparent in the second model, we need a stronger version of inner-critique. I believe that the best way forward involves what Habermas and Ricoeur refer to as “controlled distanciation.” On the one hand, we want to hold on to Gadamer’s insights regarding the importance of tradition and prejudgment. We do not want to fall back into the Enlightenment delusion of objectivistic thinking. On the other hand, some type of critical moment is clearly needed. The problem, of course, is that we cannot get outside the tradition in order to engage the critical moment. So, from whence does the critical moment come? Where does the prophet stand to engage in critique? Following Gadamer, we must affirm that critique, if there is to be critique at all, must take place from within the community, from within tradition. One cannot step outside because there is no outside, so to speak. Nevertheless, some sense of distance is necessary in order for critique to be effective. What is needed, then, is distanciation, but distanciation that is not alienating, but controlled. That is, we need distanciation that takes place within the context of belonging to a tradition. The possibility for controlled distanciation comes through in Ricoeur's aforementioned discussion of Gadamer in which he notes that our distance from the text is precisely the condition of our understanding it at all. In other words, distance is not to be completely dismissed, but can actually be productive of knowledge. Gadamer realized this, even if it was not one of his emphases. The distanciation we are looking for is controlled, however, because it does not allow one to project oneself outside of one's historicity. The kind of distance Habermas wanted with his regulative ideal is thus inaccessible. The notion here, rather, is that there is distance built into the tradition itself.
I am suggesting that controlled distanciation is possible through the use of interpretive communities. What do we mean by interpretive communities? A tradition, I would argue, is not monolithic and holds within it “reading communities” that interpret and understand the tradition from a variety of different angles. There is internal diversity within any living tradition. Under the aegis of the Christian tradition, for instance, there are a number of different approaches: there is a feminist reading community, a white male reading community, a Latino/a reading community, a queer reading community, etc. Each of these unique reading communities is grounded in the tradition. At the same time, each community brings a different and unique set of interests to their interpretation of the tradition. These interpretive communities are at once in the tradition, but their locality and distinctiveness sets them apart as particular, definable interest groups within the tradition. In essence, they are part of tradition, the local consensuses and local readings of their community give them a sense of distance from other interpretive communities. The feminist interpretive community, for instance, would understand the tradition through the lens of uniquely feminist interests. Indeed, we have seen that, because of this, feminist interpreters are apt to notice male dominance mediated through language within the tradition. The important point here is that the feminist interpretive community, for instance, does not go outside the tradition in order to engage in critique. Instead, there is controlled distanciation at play insofar as the interpretive community partakes in the tradition it is critiquing. Of course, none of these reading communities can have or does have an absolute claim on the whole truth. However, insofar as the intersubjective truths of each community are shaped by their unique interests, dialogue between these communities can help all of those within the tradition begin to unmask systemic distortions and overcome unjust structures that are embedded in the tradition. On this view, the multiplicity of different communities within the tradition is not a barrier to truth, but is rather the means through which we can come to a better understanding of the tradition, and in so doing, begin to ground our practice in the world in that tradition.
An example will illustrate how I think this works. Imagine a tradition X. Within tradition X, there are three recognizable interpretive communities, three loci at which unique and local interpretations take place; we will call these communities A, B, and C. Traditionally, community A has maintained the consensus that men should not wear hats on Tuesdays. Because community A is larger than the other two and has more power and influence, the voice of community A won out over communities B and C. Eventually, the whole tradition came to agree that men should not wear hats on Tuesdays, but this was not a genuine consensus, as it was brought about by the domination of community A. The consensus of community A, then, becomes part of tradition X and is imparted to all succeeding generations as prejudice. However, happens that community C is made up of bald men who much prefer to wear a hat on every day of the week. Their particular interests help them understand that the pseudo-consensus of tradition X is not a real consensus at all. Even though there has been a distortion propagated by community A and a prejudice has been imparted by domination, community C is uniquely equipped to name this distortion due to their local concerns. Thus, community C enters into dialogue with the other two, and the local interest of community C helps communities A and B understand what was overlooked in the pseudo-consensus. Community C thus unmasks the false consensus and now the issue is back in play, up for discussion in the context of dialogue, and no longer definitively settled by the tradition. Community C is not, as we can see, bound to appeal only to the dominant tradition, but can instead appeal to their local tradition within the tradition. What we discover here, there, is that tradition itself is multi-layered.
What I am proposing, then, is the importance of intra-traditional pluralism. This pluralism, I argue, will allow for two vital moments. First, it allows all interpretive communities to be grounded in the tradition, or the vast agreement that exists between these communities within the context of tradition. Even when local groups disagree, this disagreement is predicated on a set of prior agreements. This honors the reality that we cannot get outside the history of effects that precedes us; this is the Gadamerian moment. Second, and importantly, the multiplicity of reading communities allows for the distanciation necessary to engage in the critical moment. While reading communities do not get outside the tradition, their particular interests do allow them to develop unique local interpretations through which they can discern systemic distortions within the tradition that are related to those interests; this is the Habermasian moment.
Thus, the tradition becomes in this way self-correcting in that systematic distortions are revealed through dialogue within the tradition. The nature of this dialogue is important. What empowers this model is that dialogue takes place between distinctive groups that have distinctive interests. While the interests of each community blind that community to some distortions, they render visible other distortions; we need each other, we need different loci of interests, in order to come to true consensus. This goes somewhat to Shapiro's point about the all-pervasive nature of systematic distortion. If Shapiro is right, then within the tradition, even within interpretive communities that make up the tradition, there is no clear way to discern when and where systematic distortions are taking place. Insofar as there are really systematic distortions that pervade everything, Shapiro's critique would seem to defeat this model. However, I want to argue that there are not systematic distortions at all, at least not in the strongest sense of the term. If we take as a given the Gadamerian notion that reason cannot transcend human finitude, then there is no place outside the tradition from which to recognize systematic distortion. On the other hand, history has shown that significant distortions can be uncovered and dismantled. Thus, if there are truly systematic distortions, then there is nothing we can do about them. However, the distortions we are interested in are not systematic, but very pervasive. These pervasive distortions, then, are apparent to some interpretive communities, but not to others. If this is the case, then it is possible to overcome distortions within the tradition through the use of controlled distanciation, just as I have suggested. In other words, if Shapiro's critique wins the day, then there is nothing we can do about it, so there is little sense in worrying about it.
The More Difficult Case Revisited
I will conclude by way of an attempt to apply the insights we have gained in studying the Gadamer-Habermas debate to the “more difficult” case study, which, if you will recall, was left somewhat unresolved. In applying Gadamer's hermeneutical insights to the situation, we got a sense of the theory's tendency to lead us toward conservatism. In consulting the wisdom of the tradition, we noted that GLBT marriage has never before been sanctioned by the church. We also noted that, insofar as the tradition represents the wisdom of authoritative conversation partners mediated through history, we seem bound to follow the tradition. To do otherwise would be, as Cameron noted above, to engage in arbitrary action.
The third option presented above, that of “controlled distanciation,” provides a nuanced way hermeneutics can be used to cope with difficult social situations and engage in progressive actions. Relying on the concept of interpretive communities, we note that within Christianity there exist a number of interpretive communities whose varying interests guide the way they understand themselves with regard to the tradition. When the interpretive communities within the church differ in their opinions on how to interpret a position that has been held through many centuries, it could be the case that the consensus mediated through tradition is in fact a pseudo-consensus. I believe this to be the case in the aforementioned test situation.
By attending to the dialogue between the interpretive communities that make up the Christian tradition, we can judge whether the tradition's supposed consensus on the matter of GLBT marriage is a consensus at all, or is, rather, a pseudo-consensus enforced by the domination of one or more interpretive community over others. If we attend to the insights of the GLBT community, we begin to understand that there could be a pervasive, if not systemic, distortion at play in the Christian prohibition against GLBT marriage. In other words, the consensus that GLBT persons should not be allowed to marry is based on a conversation that excludes or at least marginalizes GLBT persons themselves. Moreover, this supposed consensus is enforced by the domination of one community over another. Thus, what we have revealed is that there is distortion at play and that there is not actually a consensus on this issue. The unmasking of this distortion, of course, does not automatically create a consensus in the other direction. In other words, the revelation that there is a distortion at play in the belief that GLBT persons should not marry does not cause the tradition to reverse course. It does, however, bring a matter that the dominant interpretative communities might have thought settled back into play as a relevant and unresolved issue. Those who wish to advocate for GLBT marriage, then, are freed on the one hand from an enforced pseudo-consensus that elides the possibility for action. On the other hand, advocates are freed to ground their social action in their particular reading of the tradition. In other words, the local consensus that exists within the interpretive community grounds their action.
The fact that this consensus is not shared by other interpretive communities is not necessarily problematic because we should not expect different social contexts within the tradition to arrive at identical versions of truth. Just as we should not expect consensus on all issues between different traditions, we cannot always expect immediate consensus between different interests within the tradition. Of course, this does not mean that there is not deep concord. Insofar as we all drink from the well of the same tradition, we all share more in common than not. The dismantling of pseudo-consensuses does not dismantle the tradition, but only those parts of the tradition that are distorted and need to be critiqued. What is important is that we keep talking, that the conversation keep going, so that we do not come to a pseudo-consensus based upon domination and violence, but rather a genuine and inclusive consensus that excludes no interpretive community.
The other thing to note is that the consensus of a marginalized interpretive community can become the consensus of the entire tradition. Take, for instance, the struggle for civil rights in the United States. At the beginning of the movement, the African-American interpretive community within the American political tradition revealed a systematic distortion within the country. According to this systematic distortion, civil rights were intended only for whites. However, the African-American community revealed this element of the tradition as a pseudo-consensus; to challenge this, they proposed a different consensus, that of universal civil rights. At first, they met with severe opposition as they attempted to overturn the pseudo-consensus. Over time, however, dialogue between the various interpretive communities within the American political tradition resulted in the new consensus of the African American community becoming the shared consensus of the entire community.
The obvious concern here is whether this can work in the opposite direction. That is, can the consensus of a hateful group come to be the consensus of the whole tradition? It takes little historical hindsight to answer this question in the affirmative. It is clear that, on occasion, the consensus of the tradition can actually narrow into a pseudo-consensus rather than opening up into a more genuine consensus. There is no easy answer to this issue, but I do have two responses. First, we should always be suspect of supposed consensuses that serve to exclude communities from dialogue. The most liberative religious traditions of our world – and I believe Christianity to be one of them – should tend to move toward justice, toward including the Other, toward widening the community. When we see that this is not taking place, and in the drive is in the opposite direction, we have reason to be suspicious. My second response is that Gadamer does not give us a regulative norm with which to prevent false consensus from taking hold. We cannot appeal to something “outside” of our historicity. Living traditions will always be messy. We should expect this, and thus we should always be on guard against misunderstanding and pervasive distortion.
Thus, from a practical standpoint, we can see that critique and change have happened, and thus, they can and will happen. This, in turn, allows for tremendous hope in that there is always a possibility of moving from a pseudo-consensus to a new consensus without the use of violence. We also have reason to hope in that the Gadamerian and Habermasian moments are not nearly as incommensurable as it may have seemed prima facie. There is indeed a place for critique within tradition. And, because of this, we are able to have great trust in our appeals to the tradition, but at the same time, we are not rendered blind by misinformed or misplaced faith in the tradition.
