Response: Enzensberger and Habermas

Again, I will begin with a few informal reactions.

Habermas used several words which were rather similar, he was using them for distinct entities, and I was not quite sure of the specific definitions. What does he mean by realm, sphere, domain, and world. He seemed to used these terms to convey something different, but I couldn’t quite figure out the distinctions between them.

I am also curious about the meaning and implications of the term “avant-garde,” which has now come up in Adorno and Horkeimer, Benjamin, and Habermas. I know the basic definition of the term, and I have a series of ideas and attitudes associated with it, but I am interested in the historical context of the term in relation to how they use it—what specific artists do they consider to be avant-garde, and why.

I was intrigued by Enzensberger’s definition of “heritage” as “class-specific handing-on of nonmaterial capital” (106). Again, I basically understood the idea of heritage, but if I had been asked to define it, I would have had some trouble. This definition seems to fit the idea I had in my head, but it also offers more to ponder, like what exactly is entailed by “nonmaterial capital.” I haven’t drawn any conclusions concerning this definition, but it caught my attention, and I want to think on it more.

This week’s prompt is the following: “Despite their Marxist orientation, both Enzensberger and Habermas are generally considered more optimistic about the emancipatory potential of modern culture. What is the reason for this optimism?”

Habermas’s optimism seems to be largely historically based. He details the changes that have occurred in the platforms through which culture has been developed and the cultural trends that resulted. From the coffee houses and salons opened up opportunities for the layperson to discuss and opine about art, such that it was no longer only the elite who could do so. The institution of paid concerts, although it made music more of a commodity, allowed composers to compose what they wanted, not just whatever a patron demanded for an occasion. While Arendt would have feared the destructive consequences to the commoditization of music, Habermas identifies the ways in which this sort of commoditization actually may create space for greater creative expression on the part of the composer. By identifying the positive effects of changing cultural platforms throughout history, Habermas seems to fear future change less and seems more open for recognizing its artistic and cultural potential.

Enzensberger’s optimism seems to stem from a pragmatic recognition of the steps necessary to achieve a more egalitarian mass electronic media. He presents a quite realistic, pragmatic attitude towards the question of new media and how it should be treated. Although he is a Marxist, he clearly recognizes some of the problematic attitudes of some of his fellow left-wing thinkers towards new media. According to Enzensberger, many left-wing activists and thinkers have a tendency to write off new media as one of “the Man’s” devices, and therefore of dubious social good. For Enzensberger, this sort of attitude is counterproductive and problematic in that it doesn’t consider the potential of new media, only previous usages of it by the bourgeois; to use a cliché, this attitude “throws the baby out with the bathwater.” These left-wing activists are so repulsed by the thought of “manipulation” by the new media that they fail to realize, as Enzensberger points out, “every us of the media presupposes manipulation … The question is therefore not whether the media are manipulated, but who manipulates them” (104).

It is this pragmatic understanding of electronic media that forms the basis for Enzensberger’s optimism. With this level-headed attitude that refuses to sensationalize electronic media as a device of “the Man,” Enzensberger is able to identify what changes need to occur to the mass media to render it truly egalitarian: primarily, that it somehow to achieve a greater level of interaction and dialogue between author and audience and to deconstruct the barrier between them. I think this idea anticipates many of the developments that have occurred with internet media. Enzensberger presents radio as an example of a form of media with the potential to achieve more egalitarian communication: “Radio would be the most wonderful means of communication imaginable in public life, a huge linked system—that is to say, it would be such if it were capable not only of transmitting but of receiving, of allowing the listener not only to hear but to speak, and did not isolate him but brought him into contact” (98). This idea anticipates such developments as the live podcast, in which the hosts use a platform like UStream or BlogTV to record a radio show live, during which listeners may call in to contribute or converse about what is being said in a live chat box. Similar developments like YouTube, web forums, and blogs also allow for a greater level of interaction between author and audience.