HABERMAS AND THE RELEVANCE OF POLITICS AND LEGITIMATION

Thomas McCarthy, when translating Habermas’ Legitimation Crisis, gave the

following remarks in the Introduction: “Habermas can be quite difficult to read… it
makes unusual demands on the reader, assuming some familiarity with a wide range of
disciplines (from economics to ethics), authors (from Kant to Parsons), and approaches
(from systems theory to phenomenology).”1 Habermas’ critical theory surely takes into
consideration several great writers before him, most noted are Marx and Weber. In two
of his early publications, Habermas concentrated on the issues of politics and
legitimation. Among Habermas’ first concerns were to criticize the rise of positivism and
its tendencies for domination.

Habermas remarked that self-reflection happens when the ego makes itself transparent
to itself as action that returns into itself. He argues that this self-reflection is absent in
positivism. Positivism limits man’s capacity for self-reflection and this makes positivism
more dangerous rather than productive. Positivism proposes dogmatism which
eventually hinders the growth of the society.

With this then, Habermas encourages the realization of a society that allows the birth
and practice of discourse. Partly he agrees with Dilthey on this end saying that there
has to be an attempt to describe the “intersubjectivity of mutual understanding within
whose horizon reality can first appear as something.”2 The concept of intersubjectivity
would later develop to become the communicative action, which for Habermas is
essential in establishing the truth. Truth is no longer propositional for Habermas. He
ceases to believe in the transhistorical, transcultural and eternal truths of metaphysics.
Truth is rather established by the community. Truth must be utilizable as a norm that
can be used to direct the life of a certain community.

Along this line, Habermas espouses the theory of communicative competence3 which
provides him the critical standard for looking at modern society. Habermas was critical
of positivism not because of its desire for rigorous search for the truth, but rather
because of the growing dogmatism of science. Habermas believes that theories are not
just meant to be translatable into practice, but more so, they should gain their basis and

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grounding from the praxis. Theories must have their normative value in the society.
Hence, Habermas found it alarming to see the naivety that that is slowly forming in the
Universities of the 1960’s. He warns against the danger whereby theories become
technical powers that robs the human person of his personality. The technocrats are no
longer after their interaction with people but rather only with the mastery of their craft
and technology. He was alarmed by the growing tendency of people to do away with
interaction within a community of human beings.4

In bringing about the reflection on the important events in the society, Habermas
proposes for the practice of engaging the people into public discussions about
contemporary events. Habermas laments over the fact that the people have already
become depoliticized. He observes that with the rise of the new brand of capitalism that
compromises the antagonism of classes, the people have also become compromising
and a breed of apolitical citizens is beginning to be formed. He said, “with the decline of
the open class antagonism, the contradiction has changed its form: it now appears as
the depoliticization of the masses...”5

Habermas worries over the fact that the people are depoliticized because the means of
manipulation will proliferate if the people would cease to be critical about what is going
on in the community. Hence, Habermas argues in the first essay of his book, Towards a
Rational Society, about the role of the Universities to stir up people, especially the
students, into politics. Habermas sees the students as the hope in invigorating once
again the political discussion about things so that things would be properly legitimated
before they can be accepted as norms. He even argues that the public has already
become corrupted because they have already become uncritical. The public is no longer
political but it has been relegated to mean the people’s mere acclamation of what has
been handed down. The mass media was blamed by Habermas for this. For him, the
mass media was utilized as a tool for manipulating the thinking of the people. The
minds of the people are in a sense colonized by the values introduced by the media.
The public loses its capacity to scrutinize. Rather, the public is reduced to the mere
number of people who uncritically receives anything introduced on them. The passivity
of the kind of public that was evolving was described by Habermas as the people
“whose receptiveness is public but uncritical.”6

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Pondering on the possible contribution of the Universities, he believes that the
University can be a good ground for reflection about current events. He warns the
universities against the thinking that “research and instruction… have to do only with
the production and transmission of technologically exploitable knowledge.”7 He even
inquires on whether we should restrict education only to those things which are socially
functional and useful. Even years after the time Habermas, it seems that many
universities are doing the same. The sciences (natural sciences) and engineering reign
supreme while the rest of the disciplines dwindle. Habermas was particularly alarmed
against this tendency and gave a strong remark against it: "Can and should the
university today restrict itself to what appears to be the only socially necessary function
and at best institutionalize what remains of traditional cultivation of personality as a
separate educational subject divorced from the enterprise of knowledge?”8 He however
gave an immediate reply: “I should like to argue against this suggestive illusion and
advance the thesis that under no circumstances can the universities dispense with the
three tasks I have mentioned.”9 These three tasks are:
a. the university has the responsibility of ensuring that its graduates are equipped,
no matter how indirectly, with a minimum of qualifications in the area of extra-
functional abilities.
b. The university needs to transmit, interpret, and develop the cultural tradition of
the society.
c. The university has also to form the political consciousness of its students.

Habermas seems to argue that the third task of the university started to emerge after
the Second World War. In the past, the teachings in the University were mostly
apolitical. The instructions were mostly content-based, and are oftentimes taken for
granted. Even in positivism, it can be seen that the dogmatism of the sciences simply
reduces the university-experience into learning the contents of the disciplines. But after
the Second World War, a kind of political consciousness was starting to form. This time,
Habermas describes, “student governments were occupied with current political issues
and student political organization were welcomed and promoted.”10 With these new
developments, the culture of the universities was also changed. The professors
themselves, especially those who would like to preserve the tradition are even also
confronted with an alternative.

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These tendencies of some students to become politically active has somehow affected
the development of what is now so-called the democratization of universities whereby
the university, particularly of Habermas’ context in Germany, asserted themselves even
within the democratic system. In democracy, we have the so-called rationalization of
choice which can happen only within an unconstrained discussion. For in it, Habermas
believes, consensus is possible to achieve and only such consensus could legitimize the
pursuance of one particular course of action.

Such system now becomes the pattern for Habermas’ ideal for communicative action.
He affirms the importance of the form of political decision making that is appropriate for
the society’s aim towards the truth. Habermas argues that “decisions are supposed to
be made equally dependent on a consensus arrived at in a discussion that is free from
domination.”11 With this then, public discourse is supposed to eliminate all force other
than that of the better argument. In a democratic university, the force of the better
argument is upheld.12 This means that Habermas is optimistic enough to claim that
reason will certainly enlighten men, who would eventually come up with a decision that
is based primarily on the better reason.

This means however that there are no privileged places in the society, not even
philosophy. Philosophy and sciences have to be self-reflective, and even critical of itself.
Habermas even claims that the need for interdisciplinary researches and studies are
only eventual products of science’s self-reflection. Habermas for example says, “I
consider it philosophical enlightenment when philosophers learn from recent
psycholinguistic investigations of the learning of grammatical rules to comprehend the
causal connection of speech and language.”13 The need to consider grammar rules and
psychoanalytic theories even among philosophers is but a product of philosophy’s self-
reflection, self-critique, that allows philosophy to see itself stripped of its traditional
benefits and prejudices. Habermas seems to argue that the need to become
interdisciplinary in our approach is not just an act of accommodating other disciplines
into philosophy. The more pressing call behind this is the realization that if philosophers
would really want to be engaged in a real discourse about the truth, philosophy could
not but be mindful of the voices of others.

The last three articles of the book bring out a discussion about science and technology.
Here Habermas reminds the readers of the danger of the instrumental thinking that the

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sciences bring. Positivism brings about the false ideals of “control.” Knowledge in the
recent teachings of the sciences, natural sciences in particular, are control-oriented.
Oftentimes, they lack the kind of reflection that Habermas espouses even of philosophy.

Habermas was particularly questioning the kind of power that scientists and experts
enjoy as if none can be over them. These people become dictators of our time. This
flows especially from the pragmatist’s point of view which accords to scientists and
technologists the unlimited capacity to decide on which things are to be done in
accordance with practical needs. The scientists and technologists are the ones
oftentimes consulted regarding the performance of many things, thereby rendering
them a kind of delegated freedom and influence. In this situation, Habermas says,
“scientists are held accountable to no one.”14

On the other hand, Habermas also rejects Marcuse’s total abhorrence from technology.
He does not agree to the thinking that “since science by virtue of its own method and
concepts has projected and promoted a universe in which the domination of nature has
remained linked to the domination of man – which is fatal, so science must change. 15
Habermas may have disagreed with the instrumental reasoning positivism, but he also
does not deny the importance of the sciences. So, he tried to strike the middle ground
and says, “A scientized society could constitute itself as a rational one only to the
extent that science and technology are mediated with the conduct of life through the
minds of its citizens.”16 Further, Habermas says, “public, unrestricted discussion, free
from domination, of the suitability and desirability of action-orienting principles and
norms in the light of the socio-cultural repercussions of developing systems of
purposive-rational action – such as communication at all levels of political and
repoliticized decision-making processes is the only medium in which anything like
rationalization is possible.”17

Habermas claims that unless we work on the realization of this kind of communication in
the society, then we would be dragged to a place where we may not want to go.
Scientism is forming its own ideology and we have to be careful not to succumbed to
the temptation of naivety, compromise and sloth. The presence of the student wanting
the democratization of the universities is already strong manifestations for Habermas to
believe that there is a hope for the future. As long as we continue the search, Habermas
seems to argue, we would not really be found wanting of the truth. A society, even if it

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is one confronted with the emergence of science and technology, could still remain to
be self-directed, self-guided and rational through the way of achieving reasonable
consensus.

Furthermore, it is also observable that Habermas’ critique against the depoliticization of

the Universities of his time was followed by another book which was entitled as the
Legitimation Crisis. This book continues to forward the same Habermasian call for
communicative action and the establishment of a kind of consensus that can be
achieved through the employment and the force of the better argument. However the
difference of the second book lies on the object of the criticism. Whereas the book
Towards a Rational Society was concentrating on the birthing of democratic universities
and the ethical questions that accompany the evolution (revolution) of science and
technology, the Legitimation Crisis is more centered on Marx’s theory or critique against
societies.

With the advent of capitalism especially during the 19th century, the problem of
distribution has already become a major issue. Capitalism is often accused of the
uneven distribution of the goods of the state, wherein most of the wealth of the world
goes to the hands of the few influential ones, whereas the majority of the people share
among themselves the little that is left behind. Capitalism is oftentimes blamed for the
perpetuation of poverty for the continuing/widening gap between the rich and the poor.

Seeing this inherent problem in a capitalistic society, Marx has reacted against the
system and proposed the Dialectical materialism that we know. Reacting to the
Hegelian triad, Marxism claimed that capitalism legitimizes the case of revolution
because the poor are undergoing great poverty, which seemed to be ignored and
neglected only by the rich people of the society. In Marx’s time then, he had reasons to
legitimize his project under the question of justice for there was clearly a culture of
discontent and oppression on the part of the poor.

However, Habermas noted that these things are already changed. Advanced capitalism
is no longer the same capitalism that was present in the time of Marx. The difference
mainly lies on two areas: the concept of reward and the amount of intervention that the
government may exert on the many aspects of contemporary man’s life.

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First, Habermas observes that the Marxian dichotomy between the guilty employers and
the oppressed employees is already erased by the complicated system of rewards that
the contemporary society has created. The creation of powerful unions within
organization has afforded already the workers a strong means to negotiate their needs
with the administration.18 Our current set-up of the Collective Bargaining Agreement
somehow approximates the needs and even demands of the workers. Hence, the
Marxian presupposition of oppressed and denied workers no longer exists because the
workers are in many senses compensated.

Secondly, another problematic area in capitalism is its cry for self-direction. This is the
mistaken presupposition that a private business industry can be absolutely autonomous
from the state. For quite a time, economic dictators and the monopolies really had their
time dictating whatever they wanted with the market. But with the progress of our
human civilization, we also realize that the political set-up was also changed. Nowadays,
the government is no longer deprived of control because in many ways the government
already influences the affairs even of private businesses. The regulations for the taxes,
pricing and many other means submits the private businesses to the controlling hands
of the government. Hence, the original Marxist proposition which says that the
government lacks intervention to the state is already passé.

With these developments then, Habermas sees another issue that merits our attention
and reflection: the question about the legitimate inequitable distribution of the wealth
that is socially produced.19 For Habermas then, there is no longer the economic crisis
present in the time of Marx, for his situation is no longer the same as ours. But what we
now have is a possible crisis of legitimation: how legitimate is the kind of capitalism that
we do?

Habermas seems to say that in the advanced capitalism, the classes are somehow
dissolved, and so the target for the social transformation has also become unnamed.
There is a danger of depoliticizing the public sphere because of the paraphernalia for
compromise such as the growing appreciation and practice of the systems of rewards.
Depoliticizing the public sphere also connoted the danger of quieting the people and
falling into the temptation of compromise and indifference.

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Hence, it is important really that we should repoliticize the public sphere. It is here
where Habermas puts his hope to the youth of the time. The tendency of the youth to
reflect about the events of the time opens the door for discourse and communicative
action. Habermas argues that the youth becomes politically relevant in this situation not
as a social class but as a critical phase in the socialization process. Habermas does not
believe that the youth could topple down an organization through a class conflict, but
what he is hoping for is the positive outcome that the stimuli of protests from the youth
are giving. The repoliticization of the public sphere through the protests of the youth (as
mentioned in the book Towards a Rational Society) is for Habermas the “new conflict
zone.” This he hopes could open a possibility for crisis that could legitimize the way we
do things in our advanced capitalistic societies.

CONCLUSION

Confronted with the recent events of our country, we could also raise the question
about the role of our schools and universities in our time. In one forum in class, we tried
to wrestle with the issue of finding answers to the blatant culture of corruption in the
country, and it seems that many are already losing hope for a viable solution. How
could we really address this issue when we don’t have the power to face the corrupt
people among us? Even if we know the right from wrong, the thing is, there are still
people who choose the wrong over the right because this is where they could best serve
their interests.

One thing that maybe asked amidst our current sets of problems is the issue about
leadership. If our leaders are neither equipped nor morally credible anymore, how can
we form a new breed of leaders that would commence the much needed moral
revolution? I believe this is where Habermas’ project in the ‘60’s and 70’s may become
relevant: we need our universities to do their part.

If only our universities could sincerely and correctly educate the conscience and right
reason of the students so that they could independently reflect about the emerging
issues, then perhaps we could gather all our voices and efforts and begin a much

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needed revolution. I believe that the universities are among the remaining powerful
institutions that can have the moral credibility to start a change for this country.

But one problem is the fact that the people, even of the universities, have also already
become apolitical. Many of us are not just tired of reflecting about our current events,
but more so, we feel lazy doing it. Many of us have become so indifferent about these
issues that we simply murmur our complaints in private without ever desiring to bring
our legitimate concerns to the public and inspire other people to do the same. We have
become at home with our inner selves, and we cease believing that there are things
that we can do if only we start doing them. The universities are strong and big
institutions, and they can certainly initiate a change if they would have to.

Another danger that our Philippine community is facing is what Habermas calls as the
uncritical public. I believe this is where the importance of legitimation is. Many Filipinos
seem to be political because many are going to the streets to air out their complaints.
But the problem is the fact that these gestures are not sure guarantees of an informed
cry for sincere desire for change. Habermas has already warned us of the reality of
manipulation that has been reinforced by the contemporary use of technology and
modern media. A large gathering of people is not a sure guarantee of a public opinion
anymore. The public is also in danger of being manipulated, and against this we too
need to be careful.

Our current struggle in the Philippines is to avoid the manipulation of the powerful even
in the process of legitimation. It would be a double jeopardy if our process of
legitimation is also at the same corrupted and manipulated.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jurgen Habermas. Legitimation Crisis trans. Thomas McCarthy. Boston: Beacon

Press, 1973.

Geoffrey Hawthorn. “The Interest of Scientific Knowledge,” Science Studies, vol. 3,

no. 1, 1973.

William Outhwaite. Habermas: A Critical Introduction. Stanford: Stanford University

Press, 1994.

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Jurgen Habermas. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge:
Polity, 1989.

Jurgen Habermas. Towards a Rational Society, trans. Jeremy Shapiro. London:

Heinemann, 1971.

Thomas McCarthy, The Critical Theory of Jurgen Habermas. Cambridge: MIT Press,
1989.

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 1
ENDNOTES:
E

Jurgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, trans. Thomas McCarthy. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973),
viii.
Geoffrey Hawthorn, “The Interest of Scientific Knowledge,” Science Studies, vol. 3, no. 1
2

(1973), 78. Although, Hawthorn also claimed that Habermas disagreed with Dilthey because the
latter fails to see that “language… is essentially connected to a structure of communication and as
such arises out of interests.” (Hawthorn, 81)
3
Hawthorn, 83.
4
Hawthorn, 84.
5
William Outhwaite, Habermas: A Critical Introduction (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1994), 7.
6
Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge: Polity,
1989), 175.
7
Jurgen Habermas, Towards a Rational Society, trans. Jeremy Shapiro (London: Heinemann,
1971), 4.
8
Habermas 1971, 4.
9
Habermas 1971, 4.
10
Habermas 1971, 5.
11
Habermas 1971, 7.
12
Habermas however remarked that consensus should not be taken as a majority. He said that
“majority decisions are only held to be only a substitute for the uncompelled consensus that would
finally result if the discussion did not always have to be broken off owing to the need for a
decision.” (Habermas 1971: 7)
13
Habermas 1971, 8.
14
Hawthorn 1973, 85.
15
Habermas 1971, 86; cf. Hawthorn 1973: 85.
16
Habermas 1971, 79-80; cf. Hawthorn 1973: 85.
17
Habermas 1971, 119.
18
Habermas even says, “In Marxist terms, “class compromise” of a sort has become part of the
structure of advanced capitalism; the real income of the dependent workers depend not only on
exchange relations in the market but on the relations of political power as well.” [Thomas
McCarthy, The Critical Theory of Jurgen Habermas. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989), 358].
19
Cf. McCarthy, 358.