The well known philosopher German Jürgen Habermas, professor emeritus at the University of Frankfurt, will receive on Wednesday, June 16 , Ulysses Medal from University College Dublin . In an interview Paul Gillespie of the Irish Times , Habermas criticizes Chancellor Angela Merkel for having squandered his reputation by sacrificing the stability of the European Union by the expectation of domestic electoral gains. The following is the conversation fragments that allude to issues of political communication:
Paul Gillespie: Political communication and a deliberative public sphere at the center Are of your philosophical reasoning. What role does this imply for quality media?
Jürgen Habermas: It is easier to detect the mote in the eye of the other than the beam in one’s own. This is why the destruction of political communication in the United States in particular – a case in point being the ideological indoctrination of the population during the debates over [President Barack] Obama’s health care reform – is more apparent to us Europeans. But the breakdown of public discourse is also progressing quite rapidly in our own countries. The major national newspapers, which played a decisive role in forming political opinion over the past century-and-a-half, have come under economic pressure and have yet to find a business model that would ensure their survival on the internet.
PG: Is there a case for public subsidy schemes to protect them from the effects of market rationalisations?
JH: In contrast to commercial television, the programming of the public broadcasting companies has not yet completely lost sight of the fact that its audience is not only composed of consumers but also of citizens. They are even bound by law to offer their audience not just entertainment but also information, education, and cultural programmes, and thus to provide solid underpinnings for the formation of independent political opinions. On the other hand, this BBC – or, in Germany, ARD and ZDF – model is not easy to apply to newspapers, which have to secure their independence in the private sector. But we should all wake up to the fact that the disappearance of an argumentative press represents an extremely acute danger for democracy. There are isolated experiments that seek to combine public subventions for the leading press with guarantees of their ongoing editorial independence. We should put such experiments on a broader footing before the New York Times or Le Monde or El País or the Frankfurter Allgemeine are rationalised out of existence or go bankrupt.
[…]
PG: The economic crisis puts public discussion of European integration at the centre of political debate. Can this politicisation of mass public awareness contribute to a deeper political union of the EU?
JH: In every country the tabloid press is eager to exploit any opportunity to foment nationalistic and xenophobic prejudices. In Germany, the Greek crisis provoked the Bildzeitung to such excesses, and the politicians allowed themselves to be carried away by this climate of opinion. Especially in times of crisis, reasonable proposals can gain the upper hand only if the national press keeps a clear head, together with the government and the major political parties. It should not let itself be taken in by populist slogans and it must maintain a halfway deliberative climate in the country. In the final analysis, it is the responsibility of the Political Parties to Ensure That The Population Does Not succumb to fear ITS Reflexes and That It Makes Decisions Reflecting on only after long-term Its Own Interests. But leave me past Experiences Sceptical. To date There Has Not Been a European single election or referendum in Any Country That Was not ultimately about National Issues and tickets. Habermas
deliver a lecture on Tuesday titled "The Political : The Rational Meaning of a Questionable Inheritance of Political Theology" at six o'clock in the afternoon at the Clinton Auditorium, University College Dublin.
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