>"when the messages of reduced self-worth are internalized,
>>  agents... tend to lose the ability even to know their own objective
>>  interests".
>Sounds like "false consciousness" to me.
>
>>

Yes, it rang bells for me as well. Indeed, any concept of dialogue or
of thought/consciousness/perception being improvable or degradable
(and science is a human project of improving perception,
understanding and therefore consciousness) will be echoed in any
system of thinking.

The question is: if the notion of improvement is inherent in most
philosophies, sciences and pursuits, what are the differences in its
embodiment in different 'improvement traditions'?

The answer has to be an empirical- theoretical one. We have to see --
and to argue in dialogue over -- whether a particular procedure or
approach to identifying falser consciousness and suggesting a less
inadequate one for particular people or groups in particular
historical situations is productive or counter-productive. (And
obviously the criteria for 'productive' and 'counter-productive' are
as debatable and as aregvuable over as the rest).

The fact that an issue is arguable, contestable, etc doesn't mean
that no progress can ever be made. In the natural sciences, 'more
powerful paradigms' (Kuhn 1962 etc) do in fact come to replace less
powerful ones in very hard-hitting and ideologically-hardened
historical shifts in which good arguments, vicious institutional
intimidation, dying-off of people and pragmatic pay-offs  and all
sorts of other factors play contradictory parts. In the social
sciences, there are some models of human nature and human society
which just carry conviction with hardly anybody any more (This does
not mean that they do not carry components of valuable counter-truth
that may eventually be pearl-generating grit in a too-complacent
oyster).

Best wishes

Tom



--
For details of my (doing quite well) textbook
        Qualitative Research Interviewing: biographic narrative
        and semi-structured methods (Sage: 2001)
look at
        <http://www.sagepub.co.uk/shopping/Detail.asp?id=4813>

The Sixth and Final London
        Short Course in Biographic Narrative Interpretive Interviewing
will take place in three-day blocks
                covering interviewing, analysis, comparing/theorising
from cases
in November and December 2002 and January 2003. Nine days in all.
        Contact me for details, or click on
                http://www.uel.ac.uk/bisp/bisp.pdf