I guess you heard that Jürgen Habermas died. The New York Times said he was best known for his notion of a “public sphere.”
He theorized that democracy emerged and could continue to exist in a healthy form only if there was a space that was outside the control of the state, where deliberation and the exchange of ideas could freely occur.
Habermas was a fan of coffeeshops. He could go on at length about their history in contributing to the development of civilized thought. He thought that coffeeshops were a kind of model for what a public sphere could be.
Through my working years, I thought that newspapers could be — and should be — another public sphere.
When I tried to explain that idea, I didn’t start with a discussion of investigative reporting but with something simpler: the problems of editing letters to the editor.
In the old days, someone who was known in a community acted as a referee of the public arguments. If he or she did it well, the Sunday paper would have at least two pages of letters offering heated but reasonable discussion of the public’s business.
In more modern times, editors have been dismissed as useless gatekeepers, something that the Internet has proved we can all do without. I find the new way of doing things as enjoyable as watching a basketball game without a referee — an experience that is lacking.
I like the new technology. But I don’t think we’ve learned to use it correctly.
It seems to me that if you define “technology” broadly, you are not talking solely about new machinery and new methods of accounting for profit and loss. You are thinking about features that encourage deliberation and the free exchange of ideas.
Shiny new machinery and shiny new business models don’t necessarily do that.
• Source: Gal Beckerman, “Jürgen Habermas Dies at 96; One of Postwar German’s Most Influential Thinkers”; The New York Times, March 14, 2026. It’s here:
No comments:
Post a Comment