Broken promises. From the Enlightenment to the modern Episteme

Broken PromisesVon der Aufklärung zur episteme der Moderne

Innsbruck - September 2011 – Neuer Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit

Dr. Joan Ramon Rodríguez-AmatUniversität Wien (Österreich)[email protected]

Broken PromisesFrom the Enlightenment to the modern Episteme

Innsbruck - September 2011 – Neuer Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit

Dr. Joan Ramon Rodríguez-AmatUnviersity of Vienna (Austria)[email protected]

“Imagine being-a-father as a universal ideal which all empirical fathers endeavor to and ultimately fail to do it: what this means is that the true universality is not that of the ideal being-a-father, but that of failure itself”.

Slavoj Žižek

“The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution”.

Hannah

Arendt

“Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit” (1962)

16th C. 17th C. 18th C.

Coffeehouses

Private Sphere

Bourgeois

Literary sphere

Intimate sphere

private business sphere

Public Sphere

Emancipatedman

Citizen

19th C.

PressImpolitical sphere Political sphere

The Habermas condition

The Habermas condition

“Habermas does indeed construct a model that has never existed in pure form. Such an ideal model is necessary for describing diachronic changes. (…) Therefore, Habermas model of public sphere has a double function. It provides a paradigm for analyzing historical change, while also serving as a normative category for political critique”.

(Hohendahl, 1979: 92)“Habermas tends to judge the 18th c. by Locke and Kant, the 19th by Marx and Mill, and the 20th by the typical suburban television viewer”

(Calhoun, 1993:34)

“…from a historic perspective, the weakest point of Habermas explanation are not, probably, the arguments related to the emergency of the bourgeois public sphere but rather those that have to do with its decline”

(Thompson,1997:106).

“According to the first view, history is an omnicompetent judge of present condition; acording to the second, the present is an omnicompetent judge on the relevance of history”.

(Pinter, A; 2004:225).

The epistemeAssumptions:• The historical linearity and continuity should be

confronted (evolution, cause-effect, etc).• The structures of power are related to structures of

knowledge, and vice-versa.• History is a discursive-narrative form of explanation

(therefore, historically situated).• Social media of communication play a role in

legitimating by reproducing the hegemonic discourse (not digital media, not social networks).

• Eventually, social media can also reproduce alternative and subaltern discourses.

Back to the Habermas condition, then:• There was a break in the structures of power

(around 1780, in Europe and U.S.)

media

discourse

knowledge power

“Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit” (1962)

16th C. 17th C. 18th C.

Coffeehouses

Private Sphere

Bourgeois

Literary sphere

Intimate sphere

Private business sphere

Public Sphere

Emancipatedman

Citizen

19th C.

PressImpolitical sphere Political sphere

Epistemic rupture

Bourgeois

Emancipatedman

Citizen

Nati

onPe

ople

Nati

onPe

ople

Promise of liberation Settlement in law

this can be further explained…

The epistemic dispersion

media

Subaltern discourse

knowledge power

1750Promise of liberation

In latin or in various idioms

Kant

Locke

Lessing

Condorcet

Voltaire

Goethe

Bach

MozartHaydn

Newton

Leibniz

Beethoven

The Enlightenment!

A day before the Revolution……could

they know?(idealisation? Invention? disorder?)

The broken promise

media

discourse

knowledge power

1850Settlement in lawInternational

Expositions

Hegel Feuerbach

Nietzsche

Fichte

Grimm Brothers

Schiller

Delacroix

Trumbull

Goya

Darwin

Wagner

Dickens

Realism?Symbolism?Idealism?Nationalism ?Romanticism ?

A day after the Revolution……could they…

succeed?(distortion, failure, deception)

The day after the Revolution• The impossible task. The inevitable failure: the conservative thing.• What is left then?

– A certain condition of “institutionalized" public sphere conservative.– Nationalism is part of the narratives of collective awareness for a public.– Nationalism is also a form of collective solidarity and a fundament for law.– There is no possibility of no nationalism, since. Unless it is substituted by

• other narratives/set of beliefs: Gemeinsamkeitsglauben.

• But, but, eh...– Is there a possibility of criticism? Yes, but assuming the inevitable failure.

• (Not in the form of a Verfassungspatriotismus, for instance).• Understanding that the ideal model (for criticism) is historically created, too.

– Is there a possibility of a revolution? Yes, and it could happen (soon?).• Revolution cannot be expected inside the institutions that repress it.• It can happen where nobody waits for it and under the form of a new epistemic turn...

The test of appropriateness • Does Habermas work fit, here ?

– Yes,• The “Strukturwandel” was translated in French as: « L'espace public : archéologie de la publicité comme dimension constitutive de la société

bourgeoise » (1962).• In his late work (Governmentality) Foucault quoted Habermas’ work several times

to explain the emergency of the public.• Several authors have related the works of Foucault to that of the early Frankfurt

School, particularly with Adorno (and the myth/discourse) and Benjamin (in relation to the role and study of history).

• How does Habermas work fit in all this ?– The distinction of two moments in the “Strukturwandel” allows this epistemic cut.– The first moment is the classic collectively accepted critcised in points (as seen).– The second moment is worse because of the feeling of deception and narrative bend.– This reading (discursive, archaeologic, epistemic) helps redefining both criticisms.

• Habermas model is good• But not totally. There are things.• We could take more advantage of it.• Applying the epistemic model new aspects of the original are enhanced:• The model becomes an analytical tool:

– Avoid the moralistic (normative) trap: nostalgic/golden age perspective.– Reveals the forms of legitimacy (acceptability of legal structures)– Helps to identify the structures (elements, relations) of the Öffentlichkeit.– Reveals the structures of power-knowledge – Offers an analysis about the forms of the dominating discourse.– Permits incorporate new media in the equation (as Ecosystem, no only press).– And the opposite:

• It gives tools and possibilities of anticipating (maybe) a epistemic change, a revolution, a change of structures or a response in front of the lack of legitimacy because the analysis of the dominant discourse allows the confrontation with any powerful alternative discourse… (maybe reproduced in other media).

Opening conclusion: (and so what?)

Can be applied, then? Bonus Track

Bonus Tracks

– Changes the individual: cyborg, intimacy?, etc.– Changes the society: networked interactive– Changes the identity: multiple, volatile, disperse– Changes the time-space: global time-www...– Changes in legitimacy (the acceptability of the norm).– Alternative forms of knowledge-power (web,

classroom, exchange-activity, work, etc)– Changes in the notion of... Media: medium, crossmedia– Culture of Participation, Prosumerism, etc.

media

discourse

knowledge power

Would we know if the revolution started tomorrow?

The possibility of a revolution: a digital episteme

There is an alternative/subaltern discourse going on:

Thank you. [email protected]

References (from quotes).• Calhoun, C. (1992) Habermas and the public sphere. Cambridge (EUA), MIT Press.

• Foucault, M. (2007a) La Arqueología del saber, Madrid: Siglo XXI, 23rd ed..

• Foucault, M. (2007b) Sobre la Ilustración, Madrid: Tecnos, 2nd print, 2nd ed..

• Foucault, M. (2006) Las palabras y las cosas. Una arqueología de las ciencias humanas, Madrid: Siglo XXI, 4th ed.

• Habermas, J. (1981) Historia y crítica de la opinión pública. La transformación estructural de la vida pública, Madrid: Gustavo Gili, 1st ed.

• Hohendahl, P.U. (1979) ‘Critical theory, Public Sphere and Culture. Jürgen Habermas and his Critics’ New German Critique, 16, Winter 1979, 88-118.

• Jansen, S. C. (1988) Censorship. The knot that binds knowledge and power, New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• Pinter, A. (2004) ‘Public sphere and history: historians’ response to Habermas on the “worth” of the past’ Journal of Communication Inquiry, 28 (3), july, 217-232.

• Thompson, J. B. (1993) ‘The theory of the public sphere’, Theory, Culture & Society, 10 (3),173-189.

• Žižek, S. (2011) “A Letter Which Did Arrive At Its Destination” [available online: http://lacan.com/symptom12/?p=69]