The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry Into a Category of Bourgeois Society

JURGEN HABERMAS. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. MIT Press. 1991. Year. 298 Pages. $26.10 . The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society was written by Jurgen Habermas in 1962 and later translated from German to English in 1989 by Thomas Burger. Habermas who is part of the Frankfurt School of thought, seeks to explain the rise of capitalism through the synthesis of the bourgeois with government and industry. His concept includes defining the notion of "public spheres" and "private spheres" of influence and charts these spheres from feudal times until now. Spheres can be seen as influences leading towards political action. At first in feudal times, public spheres did not exist at all. The entire role of politics was a private matter between nobles, kings, and the rest of the landed gentry.[14] The base point for examination is the expansion of the bourgeois public sphere into Northern and Western Europe. Later, as Habermas describes, there emerged extensive influence from the bourgeois public sphere through cultivation movements in salons (France), coffee houses(England), and tischgisellschaften (German table societies). As the capitalist bourgeois class who had achieved their status as monopolists in manufacturing began entering these salons with the nobles, they asserted their control. "A new stratum of bourgeois people arose occupying a central position within the public" They were the ones with key economic positions and by that nature had the greatest influence, and no longer was that the case of the gentry who were losing their political significance. The "burghers", who were the old occupational order of craftsmen and shopkeepers suffered the greatest downward mobility in the new dynamic, and their interests virtually ceased to be addressed. [23] The "noble" cause of the original founders of the bourgeois public sphere which were in line with the spirit of humanism were abandoned in the end in favor of the new "political task of the bourgeois public sphere [which] was the regulation of civil society."[52] Habermas centers his studies and draws analogies between England, Germany, and France in many cases throughout this book. He goes to a time in the pre-modern era where there was no perception of "public", and the word had not yet even been invented. After setting the pre-modern stage, he goes through the timeline to modern times showing the transformation of public and private spheres and how they are manipulated to attain power by the bourgeoisie. He does a good job of explaining the transformation of the bourgeois class in each of these respective models. The bourgeois, who for all practical purpose, was excluded for leadership in State or Church, "in time completely took over all key positions in the economy." [33] A new synthesis emerged which was a combination of both nobles and the elite merchants

Habermas' work, though written more than four decades ago, still retains most of its original relevance for the study of the public sphere. If you are interested in this subject, and if you are into critical thinking, then this book is certainly worth reading. Why? Well, if you take in consideration the fact that no other book has been written so far on the subject that has been able to surpass Habermas' account both in depth and originality, then you begin to get my point. As to a critical reading of the argument put forth by Habermas, one should read "Habermas and the Public Sphere", edited by Craig Calhoun. This book includes an appendix by Habermas where he revises some of his original positions.

When you talk about the public sphere in front of intellectuals, Jürgen Habermas's name is bound to come up. Habermas's 1962 study, "The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere," examines the creation, brief flourishing, and demise of a public sphere based in rational-critical debate and discussion. The feasibility of a true public sphere, which is inclusive of anyone who would participate, is for Habermas of utmost importance. Habermas follows a methodology similar to the one Michel Foucault takes in "Discipline and Punish," which analyzes the abolition of public displays of power, and the process by which the structures of power are inculcated in the individual from the 17th through the 20th centuries. Habermas analyzes historical, economic, and political conditions from classical antiquity through his own historical moment, tracing the circumstances in which the public sphere arises, how it functions, and ceases to function over time. Habermas begins with a delineation of the terms 'public' and 'private,' orienting them philologically from their roots and meanings in classical antiquity. From here, he traces the adoption of the words and their synonyms into the European Middle Ages and the era of feudalism. Habermas says that in this period, the feudal lord and the monarch, for whom `representative publicness' functioned as a display of power before their subjects, dominated the public. Authority figures embodied virtues and powers in a public fashion. Public representation of political and economic power continued, unabated until the Reformation, at which time, the privatization of religious faith signaled a separation between society and the state. Economically, in the 16th and 17th centuries, the spread of trade necessitated the spread of news from various locales. As news outside of the home became relevant to home economy, the private individual begins to take an interest in public events. Consolidation of 'national' financial administration and state-controlled taxation, along with the rise of print culture, facilitated the dissemination of news, initially in the form of governmental decrees, market conditions, and happenings at court. Through this, the actions of the authorities came under the scrutiny of a reading public. The 18th century is the key moment for Habermas. In this period, the government, along with private individuals, made use of the press, for the first time, in persuasive appeal to a public made up of private people. The press now presented the public with information, with which they were to use reason and discussion to determine what was in the public's interest. Habermas emphasizes the theoretical parity that this brings about - the rise of the coffee houses and salons, in which merchants met with gentility and engaged in rational-critical debate over issues of public import. Stretching this into the realm of the franchise, Habermas is careful to point out the problematics of a situation in which actual decis