Habermas the Public/Private Divide: \"The

Habermas

The Public/Private Divide: "The Public Sphere" by Jurgen Habermas

What pertains to the public sphere and what pertains to the private sphere is often contested in the American public discourse. Liberals and civil libertarians decry laws that limit what citizens can do in the presumably private sphere of the bedroom, while conservatives contemn intrusions into the private sphere of the commercial marketplace by the governments. But Jurgen Habermas reminds the reader that the notion of privacy it itself a relatively new historical development, particularly the notion of a sphere of life free of the "coercive power of the state" (92).

Habermas notes that ideas of a private sphere do not make sense without examining how a public, or non-private sphere, came into being. During the Middle Ages, authorities of the state were called "publics" (93). Such a person possessed a higher authority that transcended the person, investing the individual body with added state authority that transcended what we would call today his or her private persona as a simple, human being. (Perhaps the most obvious example of this separation, although Habermas does not mention it, is the 'divine right of kings' which asserted that the king possessed a mortal and private human body and a divine and immortal public authority given by heaven).

The Reformation made a crucial ideological step in separating the church from state authority, making religion part of the non-governmental private sphere, in contrast to the state. This corresponded to the separation of the household budget from the budget of the feudal household and lord. The modern, bureaucratic state might command taxes for revenue, but earnings of ordinary citizens by and large were private. Also, individuals who did not work for the state were now considered to labor for the non-public or private sphere (94). The bourgeois were private because they did not rule, thus the commercial sphere became private as well, as distinct from treaties between nation-states in the public (95). The liberal model of the nation state defined private commerce as based upon the exchange of commodities between non-governmental agencies, and defined private rights as rights that existed beyond government regulation (95). So how did notions of free speech as a private right, which could not be impinged upon by the government? Newspapers were not owned by the government, they put forth their own views, not political propaganda, thus they were private, and free speech became a private right of all citizens. Newspapers could influence public opinion, the collective opinions of individuals about government, but newspapers were not directly affiliated with the government (96).

Of course, this relatively neat division on paper is far messier in actual, lived history. Habermas points out collective needs of citizens often must be addressed by the public arms of government, even though they may pertain to private needs. The need to be protected from unsafe cars produced by private industry might be a private demand, but it is a law that must be enforced by the public arm of the government. Also, the private sphere of industry, though lobbying, can influence the public sphere in terms of legislation, and thus have a considerable impact upon both pubic and private life (97).