“Freedoms are seldom won politely”

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How does the public sphere work in the era of platforms, polarization, and artificial intelligence? The social theory lecture series Thinking Publics, co-organized by LMU Professor of Transnational American Studies Pierre-Héli Monot, explores the possibilities and contradictions of public debates – and asks whether conflict, emotionality, and irrationality might not be essential components of a lively democracy?

What exactly does “Thinking Publics” mean?

Pierre-Héli Monot: A certain ambiguity is built into the name of our lecture series. It can mean that we think about publics, or that we look at them as thinking actors. In either case, it’s about how people collectively reflect on what a good society might look like or what constitutes a just norm – as a thinking public.

What do we actually mean by “public” from a sociological viewpoint?

The public sphere is one of the most venerable and at the same time most contested concepts in the social sciences and humanities. Today, the public sphere is often measured by how rationally, fairly, or inclusively it functions. And conversely, real publics are criticized as being too polarized or emotional. In the lecture series, we’re interested in how this key concept of modernity can even function under today’s conditions – and perhaps also whether it needs to.

How has the concept changed historically?

The concept of the public sphere has been accompanied by criticism ever since its most influential theoretical formulation by Jürgen Habermas in the 1960s. At one and the same time, the public sphere has always been a space of rational debate and of exclusion and ideological deformations. Over the past twenty years, the public sphere has undergone massive change once again. The internet has created new spaces in which people can connect and express themselves – but has also opened up new abysses.

Yet the academic debate on this topic seems at times to be an endless carousel of concepts – truth, opinion, fact, emotions, fake news – round and round they go. Artificial intelligence adds another, even more turbulent layer, which in turn has prompted an endless flood of commentary.

You’re organizing the lecture series as part of the ERC project “The Arts of Autonomy.” What is this project about?

We’re investigating the history of the public sphere – and especially its polemical, often uncomfortable sides. Going back to the 16th century, political literature has been full of disputes, threats, and personal attacks. Although these forms were often seen as ugly, they perform am important function. They prevent the public sphere from becoming too smooth, too harmonious, and too elitist. Our project shows that sharp, polemical modes of speech have an essential role to play.

What exactly will the speakers be discussing in the Thinking Publics series?

Fran Osrecki, Professor of General Sociology at Berlin School of Economics and Law, will be discussing the role of laypeople in public debates. In a democracy, after all, the non-expert is the norm: We’re all called upon to adjudicate matters we only partially understand – at the ballot box, for instance. Dr. Teresa Griebau from the University of Oldenburg, meanwhile, will talk about the new communication forms to which platforms and social media have given rise – and how they’re changing freedom and control at the same time.

Dr. Nils C. Kumkar, sociologist at the University of Bremen, will explain how polarization may not be a bug, but a necessary feature of differentiated societies. And finally Carolin Amlinger, literary scholar and sociologist at the University of Basel, will explore how extreme movements position themselves linguistically and esthetically in the public sphere – and what that says about our own democratic culture.

What is your own view of the topic?

It’s important, I feel, to have debates about debates. And here we shouldn’t view the public sphere as an ideal, but as social reality. It was always a place of limited rationality – and that’s maybe not such a bad thing. Perhaps we should be less concerned about whether debates are conducted competently, and more about what subjects we still negotiate with each other in the first place. A ‘good’ public sphere can also be a ‘dirty’ one – in which conflict and imperfection belong. Rights are not won politely, and justice is rarely born of consensus.

Thinking Publics lecture series

The Thinking Publics lecture series at LMU is open to the public and is explicitly aimed at non-specialist visitors.

On 4 November at 6:15 p.m., Fran Osrecki will be speaking about “Idealized Publics: A Sociology of Knowledge of Laypeople” (Lecture Hall A 022, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1).

On 9 December at 6:15 p.m., Teresa Griebau will be giving a lecture on “Digitalized Publics: Between Disinhibition and Censorship” (Lecture Hall A 022, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1).

On 14 January at 7:00 p.m., Nils C. Kumkar will be discussing “Polarization and the Self-Examination of the Democratized Public” (Glockenbachwerkstatt, Blumenstr. 7, Munich).

On 3 February at 6:15 p.m., Carolin Amlinger will be delivering a lecture titled “On the Style of Authoritarian Agitation” (Lecture Hall A 022, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1).

Registration is not required.