Smiley Face - 2/12/09

With each class I am becoming more and more confused about the world I live in, or I guess that's what you call seeing the world from a 'critical lens.' It has been fascinating reading Lyotard and Habermas this week due mostly to their diverse interpretations of reality and how both are right. Although there are many ways in which they differ from one another, there are a couple of similarities in their works. Lyotard believes that totalizing metanarratives shape the view of the world and therefore give people the opportunity to make meaning of it, while Habermas demonstrates that there is no reality without a consensus of knowledge and understanding among people. Both theorists believe that there must be a certain level of group belief for there to be reality. At the same time, as much as there is a shared understanding on the formation of reality, Lyotard goes on to recognize how the metanarrative shaping of reality have been commodified and in fact 'reality' is under question. When a need to recreate reality it is often times difficult to make a distinction between the two. For example, why go running outside on paths when you can run indoors on a running machine? In contrast, Habermas's understanding of reality from his belief in the consensus shows that he believes that the classics are most relied upon for what is real regardless of avant-gardism.
From these two perspectives on reality it has make me question what reality is, how it is created and how two different theorists can hold such ultimately diverse views of the world. As much as there is the similarity between their fundamental construction of reality, Lyotard believes in the power of postmodernism and the avant-garde as well as an extreme faith in art to sace us - not science. In vast contrast to this inventive aspect, Habermas remains loyal to the classics and tradition mainly because he does not believe that we have moved into a postmodern era yet. Habermas does hold a valid point, as confirmed in out first CMC 300 class whereby we were given a number of historical events that are thought of as catalysts to the postmodern era, yet there is a clear difference in the way of life and cultural view from now compared to even 10 years ago. I feel that I am struggling in the battle between traditional and avant-garde for understand the fundamentals of both, yet there are still questions to be answered for both.