I have been reading an essay by the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas. His theme is the changing character of the public sphere, where debate and discussion lead to the formation of public opinion, which in turn influences public policy making. This was also the subject of his first major book – The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere – which was published fifty years ago and which I read when I was a graduate student. (Full disclosure: I wrote my doctoral dissertation on Habermas’s work and its application to the theory of democracy. In addition, I have just written a review of this essay plus the first volume of his history of philosophy, both recently translated into English, which should appear in the TLS early in the new year.)
Today, the challenge to the integrity of the public sphere has less to do with the growth of mass circulation newspapers, which rely on advertising revenue, and more to do with new social media, which rely on the consumers themselves to become the producers of content. Nowadays we are all authors, and this is a great advance in freedom as voices that had been excluded or distorted from the public sphere, can now be clearly heard. To some extent, the media has been democratised, which is undoubtedly positive for the development of free and open societies. And yet, these new freedoms are often being exercised with scant regard to the responsibilities that freedom brings. As Habermas says: Just as printing made everyone a potential reader, today digitalization is turning everyone into a potential author. But how long did it take until everyone was able to read?
Not only can we all be authors of original material, posted on websites or platforms, but we can also all be commentators on the original material posted by others. The page in the newspapers reserved for “Letters to the Editor” has been transformed into a free-for-all in the “comments” section below an article, and an even more instant response feature on some social media sites whereby we can “repost”, “like”, “dislike”, or simply deride the work of others. It was never easier to be sycophantic, never easier to be hostile, never easier to promote or dismiss content of which we either approve or disapprove. Unlike the traditional newspaper, where an editor would select those letters deemed worthy of printing, responses in social media are not exposed to the critical judgement of others. We live in an age of unmediated media.
The problem with instant likes and instant dislikes is their instantaneity: often, we are too quick in the expression of our preferences, too weak in our impulse control. This has become a serious problem for many young people, for whom the collective judgement of their peers, expressed via social media likes (or ignores), has become an acute source of anxiety. Today, parents and teachers need to think carefully, not just about how to protect children from the pain and harm of social media attack, but also how to teach children to become good citizens in their own use of social media. I have no expertise in this area and little to say, other than to recognise that this a problem that requires sustained, sensitive treatment. My focus is on the bad behaviour of adults.
I am of an age – and, I admit, a self-cultivated obstinacy – that I still prefer to read physical books and newspapers rather than lengthy text online. I visit websites for news, but mostly prefer not to read commentary or essays on-screen. On the occasions when I do, I find myself inevitably drawn to the comments below the line: what have other readers said about this content and do they share my views on its merits or failings. Mistake. It makes no difference whether the website is run by an individual with a few hundred readers, or an international media company with millions of readers, once I stray into the comments section, I am almost immediately assailed by badly written, badly thought-out, badly argued responses. Often it is quickly apparent that the authors are educated and articulate – there is evidence enough of that – but the comments they have posted betray those achievements. There are very few people I have met who can give you their best thought about a subject within two minutes of my asking, and yet the comment sections of most websites are full of the one-minute thoughts of their readers.
My problem here is not the fact disagreement, not even the fact of strong disagreement, which is normal, healthy, and the lifeblood of democracy. (Habermas describes this as, the cacophony of opinions circulating in the public sphere that condense into public opinions.) I like a good argument as much as anyone else and I think publicly expressed views – about politics, art, sport, or anything else – should be subject to robust challenge. My problem is when disagreement breeds incivility, when authors or respondents assume that only fools or malefics could disagree with them, that there is only one opinion that all sane and sensible people could hold.
The problem of political disagreement spilling over into socially disruptive behaviour is not new. In the late 1790s, politics in the newly founded United States of America had become heated: Federalists accused Republicans of trying to install a French style democracy that was hostile to property owners, and Republicans accused Federalists of trying to restore British style hereditary government. Both sides accused each other of betraying the constitutional principles that they had all agreed upon and fought for, twenty years previously. According to Thomas Jefferson, one of the more articulate protagonists, men who have been intimate all their lives cross the street to avoid meeting, and turn their heads another way, unless they should be obliged to touch their hats. Despite such turbulent times, the Americans managed to hold an election in 1800 in which Jefferson beat John Adams (the incumbent) by 61% to 39%, and political power changed hands peacefully from one party to another, for the first time in modern democratic history.
It is, I repeat, not the robustness of political debate that worries me. Democracy can cope with that. Rather, it is the speed with which otherwise intelligent people are willing to express unreflective thought. Rapid, edgy repartee works well with friends in the pub, especially after a drink or two, but less well in written form on a public website. What seems clever and funny at the very moment it occurs to us, might well seem less so the next day or the next week or month, during which the comments will remain online for others to read. If it is worthwhile to respond to the thoughts of others, then it is also worthwhile to take time to be thoughtful about the response.
Returning to Habermas, one of his pertinent observations is that the platforms that host the new social media do not take any editorial responsibility for content. They encourage consumers to be authors and allow them to post whatever they will. Even traditional newspapers and magazines will normally only remove online comments if they breach legally determined content guidelines; they edit for compliance not quality. This is very different from the traditional function of the press in a democracy, which was to organised public debate around the major political issues of the day, to create public opinions that would crystalise in the process of deciding election outcomes. In the brave new world in which we are all self-publishing authors, the editorial responsibility now falls upon ourselves. We must author and we must edit.
What does it mean to self-edit? My principal experience of this task has been writing for this website, which, thanks to its smallish, select readership, does not suffer from a plague of abusive comments. Peter – who runs the site – gives freedom to the authors: we can post what we like, when we like, which means that I must impose my own editorial structure onto the process. I think about the issues I want to write about, I spend time trying to construct a well-reasoned and interestingly presented argument, and then, once my text is written, I leave it on my laptop overnight and review it again the next day to check that what I have written is the best version of the argument I want to make.
It is not a perfect process, for sure, and I make no great claim for the quality of my posts other than to say that they are, on reflection, what I wanted to say. Note the qualifier: on reflection. The problem with instant comment is that it is generally unreflective, and almost always the worse for being so. Reflective thought is more likely to be constructive and less likely to be dogmatic, which is another way of saying that reflective thought is more congenial to the spirit of deliberative democracy.
The new social media have introduced into the mainstream a whole range of symbols with which to register instant responses: thumbs up, thumbs down, hearts, stars, smiley faces, crying faces, happy faces, angry faces, etc. I would be delighted if someone could design a symbol that was widely understood to mean: I have read your post and will think about it for a while before I make a considered response. I would use this symbol all the time.
Please feel free to leave comments on this text.
Please feel free to think awhile before you comment.