Expanding the Public Sphere through Computer ... - ResearchGate

CHAPTER 2. THE PUBLIC SPHERE 24
for the process of “denaturalization” suggested by Stanley (1983), in which
the political and social structure implied by the selection of topics and alternatives
is revealed to participants, instead of remaining “hidden” or part
of the “accepted” wisdom. In other words, there ought to be no boundaries
on the possible alternatives considered in the public sphere.
3. Participants in the discussions should think of all private persons as potentially
eligible to participate in deliberations.
These three qualities, adhered to in principle if not in practice, combine to create
the concept of “the public” as an inclusive and equal body with the capacity and
responsibility to discuss, deliberate and criticize all topics relevant to the public
authorities.
2.2.3 The Collapse of the Idealized Public Sphere
Habermas suggests that the existence of a idealized public sphere which was part
of the private realm was an indicator of institutional support for the process of
individuation, certainly a key element of freedom and democracy. He links the
emergence of an idealized public sphere, and the source of the freedom necessary
to support it, to the model of individuation supported by the society. If individuals
are to understand themselves as individuals through work, self-reliance and selfdetermination
– the classic model of American “rugged individualism” (Bellah,
Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler & Tipton 1985) – control over the intimate sphere is to
be obtained by “genuine control of private property,” and freedom, in the family
and home, from the forces of market domination. If, on the other hand, a more
Russian ideal of self-actualization and realization is to be obtained through education
and interaction (Pateman 1970) control over the intimate sphere is realized
by state-guaranteed access to the public sphere in the political realm. Absent either
of these conditions, which Habermas suggests has been the case in Western
capitalist states, perhaps since the middle of the 19th century, the political public
sphere, if it existed at all, collapses into the “degenerate” public sphere:
In the course of [the 20th] century, the bourgeois forms of sociability have
found substitutes that have one tendency in common despite their regional
and national diversity: abstinence from literary and political debate. On the