Page 191 - Cultural Studies Dictionary

DICTIONARY OF CULTURAL STUDIES

that emphasizes the cultural construction of subjectivity. Whatever its strengths and
weaknesses, psychoanalysis must be taken as a historically specific account of
human sexuality and subjectivity.
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Links Identification, mirror phase, Oedipus complex, Other, phallocentric, subjectivity,
symbolic order

Public sphere A space for democratic public debate and argument that mediates
between civil society and the state in which the public organizes itself and in which
‘public opinion’ is formed. Within this sphere individuals are able to develop
themselves and engage in debate about the direction of society. The concept of the
public sphere plays a particularly important role in the work of Jürgen Habermas,
who traces its historical development from the rise of literary clubs, salons,
newspapers, political journals and institutions of political debate and participation
in eighteenth-century European ‘bourgeois society’. In this context, argues
Habermas, the public sphere was partially protected from both the church and the
state by the resources of private individuals. Here the public sphere was in principle,
though not in practice, open to all.
Habermas documents what he sees as the subsequent decline of the public
sphere in the face of the development of capitalism towards monopoly and the
strengthening of the state. The increased commodification of everyday life by giant
corporations and the proliferation of the non-rational products of the advertising
and public relations industries transform people from rational citizens into
consumers. In a parallel erosion of the public sphere, the state has taken increased
power over our lives through its economic role as a corporate manager and into the
private realm of the family, where it acts as the superintendent of welfare provision
and education. Nevertheless, Habermas attempts to ground the renewal of the
public sphere in the notion of an ‘ideal speech situation’ where competing truth-
claims are subject to rational debate and argument so that the public sphere is
conceived as a space for debate based on conversational equality.
There has been considerable criticism of the historical accuracy of Habermas’
account of the public sphere and of its male orientation. Further, some writers, such
as Giddens, have suggested that the modern media have actually expanded the
public sphere. More philosophically, some postmodern critics, particularly Lyotard,
have argued that Habermas reproduces the totalizing discourse of ‘Enlightenment
reason’ ignoring its repressive character. However, whatever the historical problems
with Habermas’ work, the idea of a public sphere retains a strong normative appeal.
Postmodernists, poststructuralists and neo-pragmatists would all think Habermas
mistaken in his attempt to construct a universal and transcendental rational
justification for the public sphere. Nevertheless, it can be justified on the pragmatic
grounds of cultural pluralism without the need for such a universalizing
epistemological defence.

Links Citizenship, Enlightenment, ideal speech situation, nation-state, politics, rationality