Objections

2021 ◽  
pp. 165-179
Author(s):  
Jason Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Small Groups ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Emergent Property ◽  
Collective Wisdom ◽  
The Public ◽  
Systematic Biases ◽  
Individual Input ◽  
Over Time

This chapter addresses theoretical and empirical objections that critics have presented against the epistemic argument for democracy presented in the previous chapter (the argument from collective wisdom). The objections this chapter addresses include those based on the average voter’s alleged incompetence and systematic biases, as well as those that challenge the relevance of deductive arguments for democracy. The metrics by which political scientists and economists claim to measure voters’ incompetence are elitist and the argument “garbage in, garbage out” on which people like Brennan rely to criticize democracy fail to take into account the fact that collective intelligence is not a linear function of individual competence but an emergent property that crucially depends on group properties, including cognitive diversity, and thus not captured by Brennan’s purely individualistic framework. Inferring from individual input to collective outcomes is thus neither empirical nor demonstrative. Systematic biases would be, and often are, a problem for democracy but not more than for oligarchies of knowers. In a free and diverse public sphere the public and its democratic representatives have more opportunities to debias themselves, at least over time, than small groups of homogenously thinking elites.

scholarly journals Up with ecology, down with economy? The consolidation of the idea of climate change mitigation in the global public sphere

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 587-603 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuomas Ylä-Anttila ◽  
Juho Vesa ◽  
Veikko Eranti ◽  
Anna Kukkonen ◽  
Tomi Lehtimäki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Economic Evaluations ◽  
Business Elites ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Change Mitigation ◽  
Over Time

Building on theories of valuation and evaluation, we develop an analytical framework that outlines six elements of the process of consolidation of an idea in the public sphere. We then use the framework to analyse the process of consolidation of the idea of climate change mitigation between 1997 and 2013, focusing on the interplay between ecological and economic evaluations. Our content analysis of 1274 articles in leading newspapers in five countries around the globe shows that (1) ecological arguments increase over time, (2) economic arguments decrease over time, (3) the visibility of environmental nongovernmental organizations as carriers of ecological ideas increases over time, (4) the visibility of business actors correspondingly decreases, (5) ecological ideas are increasingly adopted by political and business elites and (6) a compromise emerges between ecological and economic evaluations, in the form of the argument that climate change mitigation boosts, rather than hinders economic growth.

scholarly journals After the post-public sphere

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 1545-1563
Author(s):  
Philip Schlesinger
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Present Condition ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
The Public ◽  
Internet Age ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Transitional Phase ◽  
Over Time

The idea of a public sphere has long been central to discussion of political communication. Its present condition is the topic of this essay. Debate about the public sphere has been shaped by the boundary-policing of competing political systems and ideologies. Current discussion reflects the accelerating transition from the mass media era to the ramifying entrenchment of the Internet age. It has also been influenced by the vogue for analysing populism. The present transitional phase, whose outcome remains unclear, is best described as an unstable ‘post-public sphere’. This instability is not unusual as, over time, conceptions of the public sphere’s underpinnings and scope have continually shifted. Latterly, states’ responses to the development of the Internet have given rise to a new shift of focus, a ‘regulatory turn’. This is likely to influence the future shape of the public sphere.

scholarly journals Winter Solstice Celebrations in Denmark: A Growing Non-Religious Ritualisation

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 74
Author(s):  
Astrid Krabbe Trolle
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Community Level ◽  
Winter Solstice ◽  
The Public ◽  
Religious Rituals ◽  
Local Newspaper ◽  
Level I ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Over Time

During the last decade, local celebrations of winter solstice on the 21st of December have increased all over Denmark. These events refer to the Old Norse ritual of celebrating the return of the light, and their appeal is very broad on a local community level. By presenting two cases of Danish winter solstice celebrations, I aim to unfold how we can understand these new ritualisations as non-religious rituals simultaneously contesting and supplementing the overarching seasonal celebration of Christmas. My material for this study is local newspaper sources that convey the public sphere on a municipality level. I analyse the development in solstice ritualisations over time from 1990 to 2020. Although different in location and content, similarities unite the new solstice celebrations: they emphasise the local community and the natural surroundings. My argument is that the winter solstice celebrations have grown out of a religiously diversified public sphere and should be understood as non-religious rituals in a secular context.

scholarly journals The Whistle Stop Café and Luke’s Diner

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-81
Author(s):  
Julia Neugarten
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Male Violence ◽  
The Public ◽  
Gendered Power ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Tv Show ◽  
Over Time

This paper compares the Whistle Stop Café in Fanny Flagg’s 1987 novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café to Luke’s Diner in the pilot episode of the TV show Gilmore Girls (2000). I argue that the two cafes are similar in that both offer up a utopian space where women can be themselves, enact their desires and speak their minds without fear of judgement or violence. Through a comparison of the two, I also show the ways in which gendered power dynamics have changed over time: while the Whistle Stop Café provides a refuge from male violence, Luke's Diner functions as a space in which women can exert their own agency through speech, thus keeping the threat of male violence at bay. My analysis shows that the culinary space of the café or diner contains traditionally feminine elements through its association with food and cooking as well as traditionally masculine elements through its presence in the public sphere.

Skammens retorik i indvandringsdebatten

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (79) ◽  
pp. 112-134
Author(s):  
Jens E. Kjeldsen
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Language Game ◽  
Press Coverage ◽  
Immigrants And Refugees ◽  
The Public ◽  
Performative Language ◽  
Immigration Debate ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Article Study ◽  
Over Time

The rhetoric of shame has become predominant in the public sphere. This is especially the case in immigration debates. Here citizens express shame over the way their nation treats immigrants and refugees, or argue that others ought to be ashamed of themselves because of their treatment of foreigners. This article study the rhetorical use of shame and the reactions and counter argumentation to such appeals. I examine one month’s press coverage of the immigration debate in Denmark. Based on this I establish four forms of rhetorical shame and three forms of rhetorical reactions to the demand for shame. The four forms are: felt individual shame, ascribed individual shame, felt collective shame, and ascribed collective shame. The three forms of rhetorical reactions are: referring to established facts, counter attack on opponents tone and style, and populist accusation of elitism. My analysis suggests that the rhetorical use of shame in public debate is neither effective nor a beneficial to a good deliberative debate. My study also suggests that the use of shame as a rhetorical performative language game, may – over time – contribute to a rhetorical working through that influences our attitudes and acts in a beneficial way

The Suffering of the Perpetrators: The Ethics of Traumatic German Historicity in Karen Bass's Young Adult World War II Novels

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-77
Author(s):  
Doris Wolf
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Young Adult ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Childhood Studies ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Adult World ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper examines two young adult novels, Run Like Jäger (2008) and Summer of Fire (2009), by Canadian writer Karen Bass, which centre on the experiences of so-called ordinary German teenagers in World War II. Although guilt and perpetration are themes addressed in these books, their focus is primarily on the ways in which Germans suffered at the hands of the Allied forces. These books thus participate in the increasingly widespread but still controversial subject of the suffering of the perpetrators. Bringing work in childhood studies to bear on contemporary representations of German wartime suffering in the public sphere, I explore how Bass's novels, through the liminal figure of the adolescent, participate in a culture of self-victimisation that downplays guilt rather than more ethically contextualises suffering within guilt. These historical narratives are framed by contemporary narratives which centre on troubled teen protagonists who need the stories of the past for their own individualisation in the present. In their evacuation of crucial historical contexts, both Run Like Jäger and Summer of Fire support optimistic and gendered narratives of individualism that ultimately refuse complicated understandings of adolescent agency in the past or present.

Habermas, Cultural Hegemony, and the Educational Public Sphere

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 43-62
Author(s):  
Wisam Kh. Abdul-Jabbar
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Cultural Hegemony ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Arabic Speaking

This study explores Habermas’s work in terms of the relevance of his theory of the public sphere to the politics and poetics of the Arab oral tradition and its pedagogical practices. In what ways and forms does Arab heritage inform a public sphere of resistance or dissent? How does Habermas’s notion of the public space help or hinder a better understanding of the Arab oral tradition within the sociopolitical and educational landscape of the Arabic-speaking world? This study also explores the pedagogical implications of teaching Arab orality within the context of the public sphere as a contested site that informs a mode of resistance against social inequality and sociopolitical exclusions.

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