Habermas Response

Habermas's article was very unusual in style. Maybe it was just all the "bourgeoisie" but it came off like this almost Marxist critique of politics and public discourse. What an odd approach to the topic of public speech.

Public, according to Habermas, seems to be function of the democratic freedom of the people; something that exists only in an unrepressed society. While "public rhetoric" may have been limited prior to democracy by overwhelming political powers, to say that it existed only after the rise of democracy seems unfair. Satire was not invented after the writing Magna Carta. Criticism and open speech were available long before that, in public spaces even, and I think that those must be counted amongst "public rhetorics".

The public sphere now involves less "formal" media than ever before. I think a lot of support can be found saying that traditional media outlets- television newscasts and newspapers -are less representative of the public thought than they used to be. Often, social movements are reported on by these media after the fact. The public sphere is so much online, and as result, far more able to be directly affected by the public than ever before (see: #blacklivesmatter, Kony 2012, etc). Our current public sphere is very oriented towards "viral" rhetoric. This, in particular, is very related to the democratic values Habermas discusses, what is more democratic than public comment via overwhelming hashtags of the masses?