It is not an accident that the rise of democratic and republican forms of government in the modern period coincided with the rise of the public sphere of rational-critical debate.1 This is particularly clear in the case of America, where the founding itself was the product of a rich and robust public discussion and debate. Although many members of the Constitutional Convention were not college-educated, they nonetheless were very well-read and informed.2 At the time, it was even reported that some British booksellers were selling more law books in the colonies than in England.3 But although the genesis of government “of, by, and for the people” has its roots in a public sphere of rational-critical debate, such a foundation is equally necessary for the endurance and continued existence of such governments and societies. Yet today in America the public sphere of rational-critical debate has all but disappeared, in many ways existing only as a simulacrum of what it once was. For the most part, it has transformed into the mass media of opinions ready-made to consume and independent structures of sociological propaganda.4 This general weakening of the public sphere is connected to at least three socioeconomic factors, each of which in its own way undermines our ability as a society to participate in democratic behavior.
Begin with the observation that–to the extent there is an American culture–it is quintessentially characterized by business and the making of money.5 In a word, by work. In America, the land of the Protestant work ethic par excellence, the “spirit of capitalism” has reached its fullest expression. What this means for the vast majority of us today is that our daily lives are organized around activities associated with acquiring or maintaining–and yes, even increasing–an income. And this situation is not merely a contingent one, as though we were describing one American penchant among others. No, today it is necessary for us to live this way.6
Obviously earning a living or running a business or a professional practice or simply working a job places an enormous constraint upon our time. Indeed, for many of us, our work is the single largest factor in determining how our time is carved up. I have said before that work structures our everyday lives in the form of a telos–an end-goal or purpose.7 But the constraints placed upon us by the workaday world are not merely those of time, there are psychological constraints as well. Work demands our attention and commands an omnipresence in our lives that few other things can compete with. For many of us, even when we are not literally working our minds are pervaded by thoughts of work. Add to this the role of money in our lives and the psychological weight it places upon us: incomes must be managed, distributed, allocated, saved; expenses considered–current and future–budgets more or less followed, unforeseen losses and changes accounted for, and on and on.8 Work and financial concerns thus occupy a great deal of our time and psychological energy. Over time the tasks associated with them develop into daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly routines; our lives become divided into stages, such as education, career, retirement. And it is generally known that this way of life has resulted in many people having to adapt to retirement–that is, to not working–and many are often unable to do so easily. Josef Pieper has described this as the world of “total work” and Erich Fromm was not wrong when he said that man has become “a servant to the very machine he built”.9
The second factor I want to consider is the phenomenon of consumer society, which is concomitant with the world of work and financial concerns discussed above.10 The cultural meanings and significance and overall social importance of the purchase of commodities–goods and services–has, in contemporary America, gained a prominence hitherto unknown.11 When we are not working or concerning ourselves with financial concerns, much of the “pie” that remains is–ironically–consumed by consumption activities. Of course, much of this is necessary: we need food, clothing, shelter, transportation, and so on, and cannot live well without them. The purchase of a home brings with it a multiplicity of further purchases (taxes, insurance, furniture, decorations, upkeep expenses, etc.), as does a car (insurance, fuel, maintenance, etc.), and many other things besides. There are also goods and services which are not necessary, but superfluous: various forms of entertainment and diversion, idiosyncratic hobbies, games, gambling, and so forth. (I do not call attention to these things to condemn them but to simply note that for many people such things constitute the primary preoccupation of their non-working lives.) Here too much of our psychological energy is wrapped up; when we are not actually consuming, we are often thinking about it, anticipating future purchases, and so on. It is also the case that a large part of our social life is characterized by consumption in one form or another.12 In this way, our “culture of consumption” has in many ways taken over the time we have available for cultivated leisure.
The Greek word for leisure, skholḗ–in Latin, scola–is the etymological ancestor of “school” in English. Thus, the very word we use to explain where learning and education occur derives from a word which means “leisure”. And how very odd that is, since today we generally associate the word leisure with relaxation, taking it easy, or “doing nothing”.13 Yet both historically and classically the concept of leisure is very much bound up with learning, with the birth and development of culture, and is inseparable from civilization itself–both Eastern and Western.14 It is also the precondition for what Jürgen Habermas has called the public sphere of rational-critical debate. The time and energy and silence required for broad and deep reading and reflection, the exchange of letters, discussion with family, friends, and acquaintances is, in fact, accomplished in times of cultivated leisure. As Josef Pieper has observed, following Aristotle, “we work in order to do–to enable us to do–something other than work.”15 Indeed, leisure is what made the “American experiment” possible, fueling the rich and robust public sphere of debate that is so well captured in James Madison’s notes from the Constitutional Convention–what became The Federalist Papers. But today such activities are alien to many in the industrialized modern world, and in no country is this more so than in America. This begs the question: When we are not working, or managing our financial concerns, or engaging in consumer activities personally or socially–what are we doing?
The third factor I want to consider is the commodification of rational-critical debate, which partially overlaps with the culture of consumption discussed above, and which constitutes the primary medium through which we encounter ideas today.16 By appealing directly to the theoretical frameworks of individuals, the mass media of the press, TV, radio, and internet, provide opinions ready-made to consume. Together with the phenomenon of sociological propaganda, individuals are provided with direct affirmations or challenges to their own systems of belief. And if such media is approached uncritically, it is simply adopted or rejected; in turn, leading to a partitioning of society in ways that are increasingly polarized.17
At the end of my essay, The Isolated Self and the Limits of Communication, Part II, I asked the question: In a world where most of our views have been provided for us in the form of ready-made opinions, how, in fact, do we know that the views we have adopted are actually our own? Whether it emerges as propaganda or otherwise, this is the fundamental problem of commodified opinion: It provides a ready-made alternative to thinking for ourselves and short-cuts the difficulty of critically engaging with one’s culture; it upends the telos of rational-critical debate and offers a world of certainty rooted in factionalism and isolation in its place; it exacerbates the problem of communication and thereby nullifies the possibilities of a genuine public sphere of rational-critical debate.18 As the public sphere has been steadily commodified, rational-critical debate has been taken over almost exclusively by specialists, who–as Habermas has observed–are critical but non-public, while private citizens constitute a public which is no longer critical.
What I am getting at is that the constraints placed upon our time, attention, and energy by daily concerns–such as the workaday world, the management of financial concerns, and near-constant and ongoing consumer activities–largely preclude a private sphere of cultivated leisure, which in the practical sense makes a public sphere of rational-critical debate impossible. But if the principles of democracy presuppose the (genuine) active participation of a populace–which, in turn, presupposes the ability of that populace to engage in rational-critical debate–then a widespread loss of the ability to engage in rational-critical debate undermines the very foundations of a democratic society.19 It thus appears inescapable that, in order to live well in contemporary society, we must curb the demands of the workaday world and consumer society, so as to rediscover our humanity and engage in cultivated leisure. Moreover, if the United States of America is to survive as we know it, it would seem something similar must take place at the level of society as well.
Notes:
1. For an introduction to this topic, see my essay, The Isolated Self and the Limits of Communication, Part II; for a comprehensive account, see Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere.
2. This is immediately apparent to anyone having read The Federalist Papers. I am indebted to Daniel Robinson for this observation.
3. This was stated by no less than Edmund Burke. In his “Speech to Parliament on Reconciliation with the American Colonies” (March 22nd, 1775), Burke describes the general level of political education in North America: “In no country perhaps in the world is the law so general a study. The profession itself is numerous and powerful; and in most provinces it takes the lead. The greater number of the deputies sent to the Congress were lawyers. But all who read, and most do read, endeavor to obtain some smattering in that science. I have been told by an eminent bookseller, that in no branch of his business, after tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as those on the law exported to the Plantations.”
4. See, for example, my essays on what I have called the isolated self. Particularly relevant here are Part II and Part III.
5. I have partially explored this in my essay, A Sketch of The Workaday World.
6. Of course, it is tempting to think that this has always been the case. It hasn’t. But although work and the management and acquisition of money have come to pervade our lives to an extent hitherto unknown (even in America), demonstrating as much is beyond the scope of this essay and is not necessary to my central argument.
7. See my essay, A Sketch of the Workaday World.
8. Money management is something that Americans are allegedly very bad at. The number of books and media about money and its management is staggering. Whole sections of bookstores are often allocated to the subject and a virtual cottage industry of programs and seminars has developed to help Americans deal with their financial problems. Also, the burden of poor management of one’s money likely places significantly more psychological demands on those caught up in it.
9. See Josef Piper, Leisure The Basis of Culture, and Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom.
10. Indeed, these are two aspects of one and the same world: each is inseparable from the other. See also my essay, An Introduction to Consumer Society.
11. In juxtaposition, consider the relatively recent phenomenon of “minimalism” or living a “minimalist lifestyle”.
12. I will once again call attention to my essay, The Isolated Self and the Limits of Communication, Part II, and Jürgen Habermas’, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Perhaps also relevant is Dialectic of Enlightenment by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno.
13. I am indebted to Josef Piper for this observation.
14. See Josef Pieper, Leisure The Basis of Culture.
15. See Josef Pieper, Only The Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation; see Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics.
16. Again, for an introduction to this topic, see my essay, The Isolated Self and the Limits of Communication, Part II; for a comprehensive account, see Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere.
17. See my essays on what I have called the isolated self: Part I, Part II, and Part III.
18. This is unfair in some ways. Since not all commodified opinion does this. But the incredible power of sociological propaganda is difficult to overstate, and this is what I have primarily in mind with the words factionalism and isolation.
19. Adam Smith seems to worry about something like this problem in his book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments.