Lecture 8: Habermas: The Public Sphere, Lifeworld and Colonisation

Influences: Marx, Parsons, Schutz and Arendt

Debates: Ways out of Frankfurt School pessimism, plus ‘is the economy the base?’- Marx), are all systems equally influential (Parsons) or is cultural formation the key (lifeworld interaction)?

Lifeworld (Lebenswelt as key) …world of values, culture and personal formation via informal interaction (family, friends, school?). A kind of Gemeinschaft formation…but rationalised by influence of formal institutions anyway (Gesellchaft). See Arendt as model for this.
World of tacit understandings, shared or intersubjective meanings which works without spelling everything out. Spontaneous, informal open-ended interaction.
Here roles, formal institutions and knowledge are founded, have their origin… in trust, authenticity etc. Everything begins informally and later appears as system world when rules are formalised (rational/legal, bureaucratic etc.).
In the lifeworld there is no separation between instrumental action and the world of values- the former serves the latter (contra Weber’s ‘iron cage’ of fixed rules/rationalisation).
Schutz- Weber looks better upside down: formal structures/systems are open to personal adaptations – The ‘iron cage’ subverted- structures as resources for agents (remember Giddens ). See also Goffman, Asylums on inmates who colonise their formal settings- prisons, mental hospitals etc. ( a reverse colonisation)


Communication as model for free consensual community: in our informal conversations we observe 4 key principles of authentic relation/interaction
Honesty/truthfulness, sincerity, ethics of reciprocality and understanding of the other
If our conversation meets these standards of validity (claims to validity) then it is authentic, non-manipulative ( not using the other person, no instrumental attitude). We can use the social system instrumentally though i.e. as a tool for lifeworld aims.



The Public Sphere
Influenced by Arendt’s ‘public realm’ concept. Speech and action are important to establishing a free consensus. Democracy depends on public action and spaces in which the public can act.

History of Public Sphere- emerges when individual rights are guaranteed by the state e.g. Bill of Rights, 1688 in the UK…right to freedom of expression- form parties, factions etc., protection against the arbitrary power of the state or powerful individuals, right to own property, right to trial by jury.
Salon meetings, coffee house conversation…public spaces where people can gather and freely express themselves. The Enlightenment. Intellectual development. Newspapers and the chattering (middle) classes…a public forum for the literate. Working class equivalents around Chartism etc. Communication facilitated political action: social movements, pressure groups.
End of 19th C: mass circulation dailies (e.g. The Daily Mail) focussed on sensationalism rather than informing the public.

Colonisation of the Lifeworld
The move away from enlightened debate towards the ‘figural’ or image-based communication led to manipulation of the public by media. This was evident in major ideological movements to solve the 20th C crises Hitler’s fascism and Stalin’s state socialism.
Reasons: with the decline of religion and the separation of morality, politics from that there is no masking the exploitative nature of existing modern societies; Hitler and Stalin introduced new ideologies to mystify the public re their exploited state of affairs. See currently ‘the market’, social mobility, aspirationalism, celebrity culture
Hence mass culture is a process of mystification which suggests we can all be winners… which is unlikely.

Link Between Lifeworld and Public Sphere.
The public sphere offers a link between the informal interaction and truth-telling, and the positive side of formal institutions: media outlets, public institutions and spaces which further democratic debate and action. It bridges the authenticity of informal conversation, trust, friendship with the modern impersonal, rationalistic, bureaucratic life – bridges community and instrumental rationalistic association, Gemeinschaft and Gesellchaft (see Arendt in Canovan as an influence here). The idea of journalistic integrity would be an example of this linkage.

Role of Speech- possibility that a shared conversation, dialogue, discourse will create a true consensus…follows Durkheim and Parsons…collective consciousness, pattern maintenance. Attachment to shared symbols

Misrecognition, Mystification- possibility of true consensus undermined by the way forces of money and power invade the interpersonal spaces of everyday life e.g. insecurity about appearance, racist or sexist stereotypes- see extract from ‘The Meaninglessness of Hegemony’ (H. Feather, Polis paper), Ken Thompson extract, from Media and Cultural Regulation A. Callinicos (commentary in Social Theory. Commercial etc. values passed off as personal values – wear this, go there, do that…False spontaneity…’get in touch with your real self’