Death of Jürgen Habermas - Well-Paid Salon Leftist with Impenetrable Style
Habermas was associated with the second generation of the 'Frankfurt School', which was founded in the 1920s and was heavily influenced by Karl Marx — who, coincidentally, also died on 14 March (1883).
Habermas enjoyed a long and applauded career in post-war Europe. For decades, he was presented as one of the foremost proponents of the secular philosophy that came to dominate Western universities.
According to Habermas's framework, moral questions such as abortion, sexuality and family values are allegedly no longer grounded in objective truth or natural law, but rather can be destructed through public 'democratic' processes.
He was a typical salon leftist: a master of verbose pseudo-science who hid thin ideas behind jargon. One could call him a self-promoter or a well-paid left-wing windbag.
Here is a famous quote that - typical of Habermas' often impenetrable style - seems to suggest that he himself did not believe in the truth of his own statements: “We call truth the validity claim that we connect with constative speech acts. A statement is true if the validity claim of the speech acts with which we assert that statement, using sentences, is justified.”
Despite the reputation he enjoyed in academic circles, Habermas was a remarkably poor lecturer. Born with a cleft palate, his slow, nasal delivery and awkward speaking style were often difficult to endure. Even if you do not understand German, you can watch a recording of him below to get an impression of his peculiar performance and weird voice.
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