Thanks for tuning into another installment of Raf’s Blog. Today I will talk about the public sphere and how it relates to modern times as well as civic narcissism.
The public sphere is a common area where multiple individuals can come together and discuss problems and ideas within their society and life. Through this, they can influence political action as well as have informed opinions and healthy discourse. The public sphere is the perfect place to meet others with differing opinions and views, and to share your own. Habermas, a German philosopher, wrote The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962). This paper talks about Habermas’ views on the public sphere and how it affects society. He believes that the public sphere can be most effectively constituted and maintained through dialogue, acts of speech, through debate and discussion.
In the past, there wasn’t really a public sphere because there was a lot of discrimination among people. There was discrimination between genders, race, religious affiliations, etc. This prevented for there to be a true public sphere, a place for everyone no matter their race, gender, or political background, to come together and discuss with one another about problems and politics within their society.
Although it may sound selfishly motivated, civic narcissism is the preoccupation with the self and is self directed. We see this with a lot of new social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat. These platforms allow for their users to personalize their app to be more interesting to them. They can block users, different types of posts, and follow hashtags and or users that they like the most. This makes it so that people disconnect themselves from topics that may make them uncomfortable or challenge their beliefs. In a world with so many soft people who can’t handle criticism and opposing views, we need to have settings to block profiles and users. I’m not saying blocking users means you’re soft, I’m saying that we need to have opinions that differ from our own to challenge our beliefs and grow our mindset.