Habermas claims that in ordinary transactions, we act within the shared assumptions of our lifeworld and we transmit cultural knowledge about our tradition and we coordinate our actions and express our desires, wishes etc. It is only when communication breaks down and we can no longer understand or trust one another or bring our actions into sync that it becomes necessary to engage in special argumentation practices called “discourses.” It is then that we must seek “Verständigung,” both in morals and politics, that is, we must seek to come to some kind of agreement about the conflictual and contentious situation at hand — if it is even only, to agree to disagree. There is no guarantee that we will achieve this. Habermas’s point is that if the certainties that guide our lifeworld are disrupted and torn apart, and can no longer be restored through communication, we will experience crises-like phenomena in our societies and in our selves.

Seyla Benhabib

Habermas traces the development of the idea of the critical public in 18th-century Europe, one that would hold state power accountable through the use of reason, and then its decline in an era of public-relations management focused on minimising the role of the public in political decision-making. While Habermas has been accused of romanticising the European Enlightenment, his goal was to draw attention to the stark gap between the ideals of the critical public and the reality of political and social domination.

Steven Klein