Serious engagement with Habermas would require Shirky to grapple with the concept of the systemic colonization of the lifeworld--a phenomenon he seems far more likely to exemplify than to critically examine.

Oh, here's Silver's piece on Voter ID law modeling: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/measuring-the-effects-of-voter-identification-laws/

Silver's take on the effect of Voter ID laws was Pollyanna-ish to me, and even he admits that "Both of these estimates [of accounting for these laws] are crude — I am open to looking into more robust means of estimating these effects, in case any of you have ideas." When I see a serious reckoning with the effect of vote suppression in Florida, PA, and other states, I'll pay attention to forecasts like this.

Thanks to both you and Steve Shiffrin for mentioning my post. I want to enter this conversation in a bit...I am reworking that "Virtues of Resistance" post into a more accessible form. I am a big fan of Connolly, though I'd say I'm ultimately more a Charles Taylor "attunement" fan. (As I recall, Connolly rejected both political theories of "mastery" and "attunement" in Identity/Difference...but I read it nearly 20 years ago, so I may be misremembering (creatively misreading?) that.) Connolly's letter to St. Augustine in I/D is also quite something. I look forward to reading the speech you linked to.

Fascinating reflection on the value of value-laden social science.