Notes on The structural transformation of the public sphere V-VII“Only this dialectic of a progresive “societalization” of the state simultaneously with an increasing “stateification” of society gradually destroyed the basis of the burgeois public sphere -the separation of state and society” (142)

“The downfall of a public sphere, demonstrated by its changing political functions. . .had its source in the structural transformation of the relationship between the public sphere and the private realm in general” (142-3)

On the disappearance of the public sphere because of the prevasiveness of the laws of the market and social labor:

“the individuated satisfaction of needs might be achieved in a public fashion. . .in the company of many others; but a public sphere itself did not emerge from such a situation” (161)

“When the laws of the market governing the sphere of commodity exchange and of the social labor also pervaded the sphere reserved for private people as a public, rational-critical debate had a tendency to be replaced by consumption, and the web of public communication unraveled into acts of individuated reception, however uniform in mode” (161)

“The deprivatized province of interiority was hollowed out by the mass media; a pseudo-public sphere of a no longer literary public was patched together to create a sort of suprafamilial zone of familiarity” (162)

“legislation was supposed to be the result not of a political will, but of rational agreement” (82)

“The society soley governed by the laws of the free market presented itself not only as a sphere free from domination but as one free from any kind of coercion. . .such a society remained subordinate to the market’s non violent decisions, being the anonymous and, in a certain waym autonomous outcome of the exchange process” (79)

The role of criticism as a differentiating characteristic of the modern forms of publicity

CITAS

“This society increasingly functionalizes its citizens for various public purposes, but it privatizes them in their consciousness” (Habermas qtd. in Outhwaite 7)

Cook, Deborah.

“Habermas does not abandon the project of first generation critical theorists; he endorses the critique of existing conditions with the aim of contributing to what he sees as the ongoing process of emancipatory enlightenment. . .Habermas also wants to make use of modernity’s ratinal potential as the basis for his social criticism” (112)

“For Habermas, the process of rationalization has been beneficial in many respects. The rationalization of everyday life not only contributes to enlightenment, it also serves to counter the colonizing incursions of the economic and political systems” (5)“According to Habermas, rational critical debate had been superseded by the machinations of special interest groups, political parties and public administration; these institutions generate nonpublic opinion that substitutes for opinion-formation in the public sphere” (2)

“Adorno and Habermas lay claim to the tradition of critical theory in their concern for establishing what Horkheimer once described as “reasonable conditions of life:” an association of free individuals in which each enjoys the same possibilities for self-realiation and self-determination as all the rest” (1)

Pauline Johnson.“The idealized expectations of the public . . .have made possible: the constitutional and welfare states, civil action directed at institutional reform, and the humanizing sociality of multicultural societies that seek both the expansion of understanding between, and the increased self-understainding of, private individuals” (11)

On the phenomena as a social endeavor: “Open to a new sense of themultiplicity of concrete personalities and commited also to building solidarities able to contest the authority of traditional ties, the ambitions of an aspiring bourgeoisie first entrenched themselves in a range of cultural institutions. . .This was a mode of interaction in which participants undertook to conduct themselves without regard for social stats, believing that the authority of the better argument should be allowed to prevail” (11-12)

“He insists that an enlightenment commitment to rationality controlled futures also needs to be appreciated as a commitment to opening our guiding purposes to proceses of reflection and deliberation” (14)

“A self directed future means not just the effective pursuit of illusions of ttal control but also a future that is guided by an inter-subjective will that has formed itself through processes of critical scrutiny, deliberation, and negotiated concensus-building” (14)

On his attraction to the potentialities of a public sphere based on democratic principles:“he was preoccupied by the question of how liberal democratic principles could be rescued and radicalized in Germany after the era of fascism” (18-19)

Lasse Thomassen.Indeed, what used to be the site of rational-critical debate became the site of negotiation

of interests, although this negotiation was increasingly hidden behind the closed doors of government, organizations and business. (45)

On the Decomposition of the public sphere for Habermas:“Other aspects of this decomposition concerned the role of consumption and political communication: “rational-critical debat had a tendency to be replaced by consumption, and the web of public communication unravelled into acts of individuated reception, however uniform in mode” (Thomassen 45, Habermas 161)

On Refeudalization“Consumption is individualized. . .although advertising is aimed at the masses, it is aimed at the masses as made up of individual, priavet consumers who do not need to communicat with one another in order to consume” (45). For me its not so much about it being an individualized function of private people but that it generates acritical communication. “The public sphere not only become the generator for consumption, but its objects – opinions and information – themselves become objects of consumption by individuals who do not relate to them in a critical way” (45)