In this week’s reading. Bernstein is looking at the contrasting angles of modernity and postmodernity that some seem to pull out of the works of Habermas and Derrida. Bernstein’s point is that these angles should be read as an allegory of the modern / postmodern condition, one that can not and should not be reconciled. They are eternally locked in a struggle of otherness with each other. They have irreconcilable differences that form a “New Constellation” to guide us as we discuss ever changing elements of life. At least, that is what I think he is trying to say. We should embrace the problems of reconciling modernity with postmodernity rather than smooth them out.

One of the concepts that caught my attention was the concept of Otherness as explored by Derrida. Not that there really is enough here to really give me a total picture of what it is, but the issues of how we are different and what that does to us… seems to be played out extensively on social media all the time. I just wonder what theorists are doing with social media, since it seems to be giving us many more windows into the minds of others than we had access to in the past.

Habermas is looking a lot at classifications of speech acts. Once again, I think I get the individual parts when I read them, but struggle to put the whole together or to be able to summarize what I have read. Basically I get that it is important to look at how we are communicating so that we can (as accurately as possible) communicate what we intend to.