The constituent role of criticism in the Habermas public sphere

Criticism can be understood in two ways in The structural transformation of the public
sphere. One is to read the text itself as an exercise of critical thought, heir of the
ran!furt school. "#rgen Habermas interdisciplinary criti$ue of the naturali%ed
&
concept
of the public sphere continues the critical impetus found in 'ialectic of (nlightenment
and, at the same time, it ta!es distance from Hor!heimer and )dornos pessimistical
approach to the enlightenment process of rationali%ation
*
. On the other hand, criticism
plays a +ery specific role within the narrati+e of Habermas boo! as the fundamental
process that originates in the bourgeois public sphere, and continues to differentiate the
modern forms of publicity. ,n the present essay , will discuss how criticism is portrayed
as a rational endea+or -rationality. generated by discussion in the self/regulated
-autonomy., free association of men, an exercise which has the potential to undo the
constraints of domination.
Lasse Thomassen.
,ndeed, what used to be the site of rational/critical debate became the site of negation of
interests, although this negotiation was increasingly hidden behind the closed doors of
go+ernment, organi%ations and business. -01.
On the 'ecomposition of the public sphere for Habermas2
Other aspects of this decomposition concerned the role of consumption and political
communication2 rational/critical debat had a tendency to be replaced by consumption,
and the web of public communication unra+elled into acts of indi+iduated reception,
howe+er uniform in mode -Thomassen 01, Habermas &3&.
On 4efeudali%ation
Consumption is indi+iduali%ed. . .although ad+ertising is aimed at the masses, it is aimed
at the masses as made up of indi+idual, pria+et consumers who do not need to
communicat with one another in order to consume -01..
or me its not so much about it being an indi+iduali%ed function of pri+ate people but that
it generates acritical communication.
The public sphere not only become the generator for consumption, but its ob5ects 6
opinions and information 6 themsel+es become ob5ects of consumption by indi+iduals
who do not relate to them in a critical way -01.