As an orphan of the 21st century, now nestling under the ideological force of the new world order, I am a bit intrigued by what Foucault said in 1979:
“We are witnessing a globalization of economy? For certain. A
globalization of political calculations? Without doubt. But a
universalization of political consciousness? Certainly not”.
The question is when did the process of globalization begin? Does it have anything to do with post modernism and escalating violence in today’s world? This brings us to the main questions: What is violence? Why does violence occur? Jurgen Habermas the German philosopher says that violence exists in all societies with an exception that it does not occur in democratic societies because of the praxis of our daily life depend on the solid foundation of the communicative action. But why in a large democracy like India we find a sudden spurt of terrorist activities leading to a ‘Spiral of Violence’, violence of all kinds, and subsequently a complete collapse of trust, tolerance, dialogue and communication. Habermas says:
“The Spiral of violence begins as a spiral of distorted
communication that leads through the spiral of uncontrolled
reciprocal mistrust, to the breakdown of communication”.
Has globalization humiliated the notion of the public sphere altogether?We have two divergent viewpoints regarding the effect of globalization on various countries and culture. Habermas believes globalization is largely responsible for escalating violence basically due to inequalities, pressers to modernize and establish enlightenment values especially in the countries which still live in the dynamics of traditional/feudal life-systems. Derrida almost voiced the same concern like Habermas by understanding the inequalities created by globalization and doubted if at all globalization is taking place in the Islamic and African cultures? Derrida also brings in the problem of modernity and enlightenment or rather the absence of it in various cultures which suffer from the paradox of marginalization, impoverishment, denial of democratic rights and even dispossession of its natural resources (like oil) which are in fact the only goods left today and are ‘non-deterriorilizable’. Giovanna Borradori says:
“This situation makes the Islamic block more vulnerable to the
savage modernization brought about by the globalized markets and
dominated by a small number of states and international corporation.”
How many lies do we live with?
Derrida rightly understood the effect of globalization on the dynamics of conflict and war. The west unilaterally declares war and the reasons given for such actions are complete lies, beautiful, exact and well constructed lies. The secrets are kept as classified documents unless there is a Julian Assange whose WikiLeaks reveals the truth. Let us not forget that communication is mutual understanding and understanding cannot occur in a completely unregulated context, namely, one in which, lies, deceit, hypocrisy plotting to destabilize democratic nation – states, mystification, mythologizing and manipulation predominate. Telling the truth could be a ‘bit of ideality’, because by and large the civilization and the life world survives on lies and deceit, however, even if individuals may not always tell the truth the basic political, economic, diplomatic, military informations cannot be manipulated all the time. If such things happen a single or a series of lies can devastate the entire world.
Re-configuring the Public Sphere
If this is the age of globalization it is also the age of ‘suspicion of reason’ there is a rage against humanism and enlightenment, hence the category of public sphere is under deep erasure. The onslaught against enlightenment was initiated by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. Enlightnment, they said, intended to remove fear and suffering, instead the enlightened world ‘radiates under the sign of triumphant evil because already in the itinerary of enlightenment there was a grain of violence in the form of imposing the rule of reason over other things… enlightenment is patriarchal… knowledge which is power knows no limits’.
In a counter argument Habermas analyses the public and the private sphere by drawing a parallel between the system and the life-world. Habermas distinguishes between the pre-modern and modern societies by saying that unlike the pre- modern societies, modern societies separates between productive functions into two specialized institutions, the economy and the state, or the life-world systems linked to the economy and administrations. Life-world includes both the private and the public and the debates, participations, opinion formation takes place in the public sphere which constitute the two institutional orders of the modern world. Action in the modern world is coordinated by systems which function according to an internal logic of rationality: the market is an example of such a system. Choices and outcome of action are primarily dictated by market compulsions and secondarily by the desires and intentions of social beings. The political institutions of the state function as another system determining social action and modes of interaction. On the other hand, the fabric of the life-world (the private and the public sphere) is constituted by socially defined means and ends. The socially coordinated action gave rise to the (rational critical public debate of private persons… that had its home in the sphere of patriarchal conjugal family). As the process of rational-critical endeavour heightened, deep structural changes occurred at the label of gender relation. The patriarchal conjugal family consolidated through the concept of the aristocratic world and extended families of the peasantry. The new bourgeois family was apparently related to the (permanent intimacy) which ran into the contradictory phenomenon of (playful intimacy) born out of urban mobility. The image of the bourgeois family was in serious conflict with social reality. The wish for a happy conjugal life, ideas of freedom and cultivation of cultural aspirations of the female members of the private sphere were socially and economically depended upon the male head as well as institutions that were heavily patronized by men. It is in this context Habermas proposed the idea of the ‘third sphere’ that of the intimate sphere (conjugal family) in addition to the public and private sphere. In a positive vein Habermas refers to the letter exchanges, diaries, other literary activities of women of the 18th century and places it as ‘audience oriented’ whereas similar activities were placated by Michel Foucault in the ‘confessional mode’ (Inward looking). The significance of Habermasian placing of such activities is in the ‘transfer of experience from the intimate to the public sphere’.
Is it time for us to move into a much wider and cosmopolitan public sphere, so to say, into the Husserlian ‘Life world System’? If this shift is granted /accepted it can imply that the reference to ‘Life World’ will free the public realm from the model of the public sphere as enunciated in the 18th century European background which had a clear divide between the public and the private domain. I would like to argue that we cannot reverse the wheel of history and go back to the established norms of traditional value of ethics, morality, religion, economy and culture which would then dangerously invite the three most powerful cultural and religious tradition- Hinduism, Christianity and Islamic civilization to clash and challenge the 21st century. Secondly, the rational dialogism and the communicative action is being systematically mutilated by both the political and non-political forces like religious fundamentalism, all kinds of fanaticism, market and other forces. It is true that there are new ranges of social movements like environmentalism, Civil Rights, Pacifism, and anti- globalization whose basic aim is to focus on the well being of the Life World which are constantly threatened by the system- imperatives. But simply shifting focus from the public sphere to the life world will not be sufficient to stop violence, which has become ‘interior’/ ‘domestic’.
Why Choose Public Sphere as the Umbrella Concept
Public sphere concerns of a space where private people come together as a public to share interact and exchange their ideas on a broader social, cultural and political domain. While globalization has accelerated the process of “Violent uprooting of traditional ways of life”, in a dialectical way it has also opened up the possibilities of new public spaces where cultural producers can engage themselves to negotiate the various issues of a new world order which is constantly changing.
The projects have the following signposts:
1. Re-configuring the Public Sphere.
2. Exclusive and inclusive function of geographical boundaries – culture in relation to the other.
3. Derridian notion of hospitality as against Habermasian notion of tolerance.
4. ‘Federation of people – towards a more cosmopolitan/ cosmopolitical life-world.
5. Violence – where is the ‘Other Heading?’
Amit Mukhopadhyay
