{"id":337,"date":"2015-12-14T16:48:53","date_gmt":"2015-12-14T16:48:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/?p=337"},"modified":"2015-12-14T16:54:11","modified_gmt":"2015-12-14T16:54:11","slug":"a-public-sphere-without-a-public-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/?p=337","title":{"rendered":"A Public Sphere Without a Public Good"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scholars have long viewed the public sphere, among other things, as a realm for coordinated action. In The<\/em> Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere<\/em>, J\u00fcrgen Habermas recounted how the bourgeoisie developed a sense of themselves as a collective subject and asserted the public sphere as the locus of political authority. In The Public and Its Problems<\/em>, John Dewey explained that publics arise from recognition of their implication in the consequences of human activity. Publics organized to address these consequences and pursue their interests purposefully, rather reacting haphazardly to societal developments. In her reflections on publics, Hannah Arendt called people\u2019s coordinated activities the constitutive power of human relationships. She wrote that that \u201cpower springs up between [people] when they act together and vanishes the moment they disperse.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

Arendt\u2019s reference to power \u201cvanishing\u201d underscores the contingency of the public sphere, intimating its embedment in wider systems and societies. Action in the public sphere may change society, but society may change the public sphere. These changes may include the assumptions and values that inform coordinated action in the public sphere. In this spirit, a primary assumption is the possibility of coordinated action itself. Scholars have long believed that this action is consequential because when people act together, their activities amount to more than the sum of their individual efforts. Public action transforms individual effort. Working together, people can pursue problems and possibilities that elude them individually. Public action assumes and, in turn, sustains a public good.<\/p>\n

But what happens if people lose faith in the idea and practice of a public good? What if people doubt the possibility of a public \u201cwe\u201d and insist instead that society consists only of an assemblage of \u201cme\u201ds? Under these circumstances, how, if at all, may the public sphere coordinate action?<\/p>\n

We live in such a time. In the United States and elsewhere, public, in its multiple meanings, has become a source of skepticism and, for some, anger. Surveys suggest that people\u2019s trust in government to serve the public interest has plummeted.[2]<\/a> Across a range of different issues, from municipal trash collection to prisons, local, state, and federal governments have outsourced formerly public functions to private enterprises. Public functions that had previously been regarded as unrelated to pecuniary considerations have now become opportunities for profit maximization. These developments have included the public provision of education, which historically has been regarded as crucial for the vibrant functioning of democracy and the public sphere. Vouchers, charter schools, defunding public education, standardized testing\u2014all of these policy initiatives recast education from a public good serving a \u201cwe\u201d that includes students, their families, and everyone else to a private good that leaves individuals responsible for maximizing their educational opportunities and outcomes, and blameworthy if they fail.<\/p>\n

These policies represent the enactment of a school of economic and political thought that denies the existence of publics and public goods as anything other than the aggregation of individuals and individual interest. In Capitalism and Freedom<\/em>, Milton Friedman made plain his view that references to a public constituted a fiction, asserting that \u201ca free man\u201d rightly discerned the constitution of a country \u201cas a collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them.\u201d\u00a0 A free man, he continued, \u201crecognizes no national goal except as it is the consensus of the goals that the citizens severally serve.\u00a0 He recognizes no national purpose except as it is the consensus of the purposes for which the citizens severally strive.\u201d[3]<\/a> As a leading figure in the Chicago School, Friedman outlined an approach that has become axiomatic to present-day neoliberal governing regimes: the body politic exists only as bodies that may be constituted and disciplined as individuals who are compelled to adopt a market rationality. As Wendy Brown puts it, \u201cthe body politic ceases to be a body but is, rather, a group of individual entrepreneurs and consumers.\u201d[4]<\/a> A public shaped through interaction and engagement reappears as an aggregated public.<\/p>\n

In this moment, the public sphere appears, as Habermas has remarked in relation to a different period in history, as ideology and more than ideology. Skepticism in a public good has not stopped politicians from appealing to a public good as they pursue policies that undermine publics. For example, when asked about perceived attacks on public education in Wisconsin, the chair of the State Assembly\u2019s Education Committee retorted that the sum of these recent changes \u201cnot only challenges the public schools to step up their game, but it also gives parents opportunities that they didn’t have before.\u201d[5]<\/a> In this response, competition fosters a public good, and choice replaces coordination as a mode of public agency. Nevertheless, this comment also indicates the continued resonance of a common good, as the committee chair asserts that everyone benefits.<\/p>\n

An ominous development, the emergence of a public sphere without a public good need not represent a permanent condition of public life. Rather, the current situation is filled with tensions and varied possibilities that may bolster or weaken publics. At the local level, for example, communities have pushed back against attacks on public education. They have demanded a role\u2014a collective, democratic role\u2014in educational decision-making. As rhetoric and communication scholars, our role is to investigate the contrasting pressures on a public good and their implications for the public sphere. In this process, we may discern emancipatory possibilities.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition<\/em> (1958; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 200.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> American National Election Studies. The ANES guide to public opinion and political behavior <\/em>[table 5A.1]. 2010. Retrieved from www.electionstudies.org\/nesguide\/toptable\/tab5a_1.htm; James A. Davis and Tom W. Smith, General Social Surveys, 1972-2008. <\/em>Chicago: National Opinion Research Center, 2009.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom<\/em> (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 1-2.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Wendy Brown, \u201cNeo-liberalism and the End of Liberal Democracy,\u201d Theory and Event<\/em> 7 (2003). Accessed online at<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> \u201cPublic Educators Are Being Challenged, not Under Assault, Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt says,\u201d Capital Times<\/em>, 24 May 2015, http:\/\/host.madison.com\/ct\/news\/local\/writers\/todd-milewski\/public-educators-are-being-challenged-not-under-assault-rep-jeremy\/article_e64116ce-2f47-5190-bb3a-1acd2d226f88.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scholars have long viewed the public sphere, among other things, as a realm for coordinated action. In The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, J\u00fcrgen Habermas recounted how the bourgeoisie developed a sense of themselves as a collective subject and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":338,"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions\/338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}