"the survival of democracy ultimately rests on people's ability to argue with one another… and listen". That is the false promise of social media. Everyone is shouting into the wind, refusing to listen to counter arguments.
Thank you Katja for bringing Habermas' legacy to our attention.
I studied and worked with Habermas’s ideas in my doctoral studies and he remains in my intellectual hinterland even though I hadn’t engaged with his work for years. My interests had moved on to other things; it felt more important to do Habermassian things than to read Habermas. Now he has passed away I feel called back to his work. One debate he was vital to was the debate over postmodernism and poststructuralism, in particular his debate with Foucault. It’s an open question who won intellectually (probably not even a very good question). But the world we now live in is one in which Foucault’s ideas have achieved a sort of practical dominance and the same is true of many of the ideas of postmodernism. What once were critical challenges to the mainstream (and useful as such) are now the ways we are governed. So the answer to the question in your headline is: maybe not. And this is profoundly to be regretted. However one lesson of The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere is that the Public Sphere was born under specific historical conditions; it can therefore die when those conditions no longer obtain. So then the issue is what can we hope for in its place, and how do we make it? This seems to me a Habermassian question. And so his “ideas” may not live on, if that means the answers he proposed. But his questions continue to be vital.
Thanks for this article, Katja. Habermas’ contributions to the discussions about the role of history in our lives, and his understanding of what history actually is, have been invaluable for the development of post-WW2 democracy in Germany, and, probably, in much of Europe. His passing is sad because of the void it leaves behind. Sadly there are few such figures contributing today. Our attention span, along with our tolerance of debate and honest disagreement, seems to be diminishing. This is not good for the health of our democracies.
I have to confess that the first time I heard about him was yesterday when I learned about his passing. However from reading your account of this life and work, I can appreciate just how important and influential figure he was for post war Germany. Definitely a man for his time.
Thank you for writing this article about him Katja.
I saw reports of his decease yesterday and I had to look him up; I didn’t know a thing about him. Thank you for filling in another gap in my knowledge. I imagine he had a poor opinion of the quality of debate on social media. Thanks Katja.
Some of these philosophers have brains to burn , it’s all about the delivery for me personally, was he a good speaker Katja ? have to confess I’ve not heard of him
"the survival of democracy ultimately rests on people's ability to argue with one another… and listen". That is the false promise of social media. Everyone is shouting into the wind, refusing to listen to counter arguments.
Thank you Katja for bringing Habermas' legacy to our attention.
I studied and worked with Habermas’s ideas in my doctoral studies and he remains in my intellectual hinterland even though I hadn’t engaged with his work for years. My interests had moved on to other things; it felt more important to do Habermassian things than to read Habermas. Now he has passed away I feel called back to his work. One debate he was vital to was the debate over postmodernism and poststructuralism, in particular his debate with Foucault. It’s an open question who won intellectually (probably not even a very good question). But the world we now live in is one in which Foucault’s ideas have achieved a sort of practical dominance and the same is true of many of the ideas of postmodernism. What once were critical challenges to the mainstream (and useful as such) are now the ways we are governed. So the answer to the question in your headline is: maybe not. And this is profoundly to be regretted. However one lesson of The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere is that the Public Sphere was born under specific historical conditions; it can therefore die when those conditions no longer obtain. So then the issue is what can we hope for in its place, and how do we make it? This seems to me a Habermassian question. And so his “ideas” may not live on, if that means the answers he proposed. But his questions continue to be vital.
Thanks for this article, Katja. Habermas’ contributions to the discussions about the role of history in our lives, and his understanding of what history actually is, have been invaluable for the development of post-WW2 democracy in Germany, and, probably, in much of Europe. His passing is sad because of the void it leaves behind. Sadly there are few such figures contributing today. Our attention span, along with our tolerance of debate and honest disagreement, seems to be diminishing. This is not good for the health of our democracies.
I have to confess that the first time I heard about him was yesterday when I learned about his passing. However from reading your account of this life and work, I can appreciate just how important and influential figure he was for post war Germany. Definitely a man for his time.
Thank you for writing this article about him Katja.
He cast a long shadow and will be missed.
I saw reports of his decease yesterday and I had to look him up; I didn’t know a thing about him. Thank you for filling in another gap in my knowledge. I imagine he had a poor opinion of the quality of debate on social media. Thanks Katja.
Some of these philosophers have brains to burn , it’s all about the delivery for me personally, was he a good speaker Katja ? have to confess I’ve not heard of him