MerryChristmas!, Habermas

Habermas was certainly an easier read than Lyotard. His blatant use of language and explanations of how culture during the Enlightenment were simple. Habermas states, "Each domain of culture could be made to correspond to cultural professions in which problems could be dealt with as the concern of special experts. This professionalized treatment of the cultural tradition brings to the fore the intrinsic structures of each of the three dimensions of culture." (103). Habermas examines the roles within what makes up a culture and says that it is divided by professions. He then states that there is a gap between the professionals (who are experts in one of the three fields of a culture) and the larger public (those who do not have expertise in any of the fields). This made me think of the media and how experts within the field of entertainment use entertainment to spread their ideologies through advertisements. They do this by exposing these ideologies to the larger public, who are unaware of the lasting effects that advertisements may have on them. Habermas ties the Enlightenment to this idea by saying that, "The Enlightenment philosophers wanted to utilize this accumulation of specialized culture for the enrichment of everyday life- that is to say for the rational organization of everyday social life." (103) In other words, there are people and meanings behind why we behave socially the way we do. These people (aka philosophers) construct this idea of how we are supposed act in the culture that they run.