Exploring Habermas' Paradigms

So much more than $0.20, har dee har har!

The learning takes an intensive swing on Monday, 13 September as we delve into some different perspectives through which we may explore human sexuality: Habermas' Paradigms. This begs the question: what is a paradigm? I will treat a paradigm as an encompassment of factors influencing a viewpoint on the given subject in question. That is to say: there are different ways of considering any given issue; a paradigm, as I understand it, categorizes these sentiments. Please do not worry if you are confused, for I may be as well. Time will tell...

Habermas' Paradigms consist of 3 (paradigms): Empirical-Analytic, Critical Theoretic and Situational Interpretive.

Since we talked about them in such detail in class, I think I'll focus on what direction we're going in now that we have them. These 3 distinctive approaches can be considered when discussing matters of human sexuality  not in recognition that there is or is not a correct paradigm to be used, but rather as an acknowledgement that there are other factors and standpoints to be considered. This is best cemented with an example; let's talk about pornography!

Pornography a la Empirical - Analytic

Whilst exploring a topic such as pornography, the empirical-analytic approach will likely dive into numbers and statistics. How many people out of 50 have watched some porn? When was the last time? How old were you the first time? How many people are employed in the United States as a result of the pornography industry? How does pornography contribute to the economy? If the issue at hand were "is pornography right or wrong?" the empirical-analytic approach might quickly justify that indeed it is as we turn out some numbers that might shock a fair lot of us.

Pornography a la Critical Theoretic


This paradigm more thoroughly explores political and societal factors surrounding pornography, such as the objectification of women (and men as well), socio-economic conditions of those sharing any involvement in the industry, and generally how pornography affects and influences a given society.

Pornography a la Situational - Interpretive


This one is my favorite paradigm because it focuses on individual experience. A fellow could be knee deep in his pornography collection and be responsible himself for skewing the numbers in the empirical paradigm and objectifying women in the critical theoretic, but here, in the situational, he is afforded the opportunity to tell us why. Sometimes instead of presenting numbers or macro-social ramifications, a phenomenon is best understood when told from the viewpoint of someone who has actually lived it. We're talking case-study here.

Something we are taught in our earliest human sexuality classes in school is to wrap it up.

Heh heh.