Habermas Lacking

What does it say about digital media that the Habermasian “digital commons” did not really get legs underneath it until 2004 (and only then as something heavily licensed and mined for profit)? Clearly, the ideal of the greatest good has yet again taken back seat to what earns the most money.

I think it is terribly shortsighted to excuse Habermas as something of a bourgeois apologist, and I feel the implementation of his ideas—stunted as they have been by a necessity of profit—betray the sort of idealistic marketplace of ideas that Habermas claimed to advocate. In short, the Habermas Commons is just as exploited and exploitable as any other marketplace, despite who he tries to leave as custodians.

Just as “the commons” in historical periods has been subject to appropriation by the “haves” (versus the “have-nots”), a similar sort of corruption is taking place in today’s “digital commons.”

Don’t get me wrong; I think that Habermas describes a really nice utopian society with a few ready-solved caveats. I would like to live in such a society myself. However, the means of production and the greed of individuals’ supersede any vaguely authoritarian body. Habermas never really explains why my giving him a few bucks wouldn’t garner me preferential treatment.

I hate to be the person regularly condemning efforts of shared intelligence and new-media commoditization, but I think essayist like Habermas prove my point in advance: we can really only conceive of a “communist”/ “shared”/ “egalitarian”/ “utopian” forum for ideas in vacuums where the implicit necessities of production are marginalized.

I appreciate Habermas’ ideas, but his work leads only to the sort of idealist apologetics of Poster, where real-world conditions of production are marginalized by high ideals where only if “what-if” were the case. It is certainly fun, but hardly productive.

Consider, for example the tale of Wikipedia. It has been largely regarded as a darling of new media concept, spawning books like “Wikinomics” that heralded the production of group content. I may be cynical but these sorts of texts seem to me to be exploiting the free labor of passionate participants, as though the Jews working for Ramses were not slaves because they believed in his deification. I will first admit that this is probably a rhetorical sleight of hand, but what is a dispassionate viewer to think when he cruises that back alleys of Wikipedia and sees so much distrust, power play and manipulation at work? We can’t debate the merits of “what really is truth” here, but let us not forget that lesson when we see viewpoints stifled out by controlling moderators. When/how did we decide what was truth worthy of Wikipedia? I would argue that in a certain sense a major quality of the website is lost when we can finally and summarily remove certain updates.

The reader no doubt sees all sorts of problems with such a militant egalitarianism. I agree. But what are we to draw from Habermas except such an ideal? We read Habermas with the understanding that we can no longer trust the Proletariat sentiments to reflect the most good and just ideals. Were we still reading Marx such a concept would be criminal. In a truly Marxian society, literally so. Thus I ask that we read Habermas with the same sort of credulity that any group of revolutionaries would consider new doctrine. I argue that his implications are vast and totalitarian. We are told to accept the will of the Bourgeoisie—why? Because they hold power. Because they develop content.

Why would we do this today? Because it is quaint? Because it is authoritative? I disagree wholly with Habermas and his ideal of the protecting Bourgeoisie. It lacks merit. I would rather struggle with an unanswered or frightening solution like the rise of the Proletariat, than rest on my laurels in favor of an easy answer where the “best and brightest” naturally hold sway. I have yet to see that historical condition. And I am still waiting.