Post in Read any useful research lately, unanswered research questions

Jul 19 18:40 UTC

Michael

I expected you to end that with an exclamation mark - if only it were
that simple and if only those generalisations were applicable
internationally. I don't know when there was last a functioning public
sphere in England?

If I recall my classics correctly the original (Greek)democracy failed
due to the public deferring their right to participate to do other
things, which has been repeated through history with 'bread & circuses'
to scapegoats. It would be easy to split between public and mass, but I
certainly don't think mass is an appropriate word in the UK setting and
it has been relatively recently used in a similar context e.g. mass
observation but that could equally have been used as public observation?

The difference between the two has been successfully employed in
continental (from the UK perspective) philosophy as presumably the quote
from Habermas demonstrates.

I personally have been examining participation from the recent use of
the word 'customer' by governments as opposed to 'citizen', which has
been interestingly examined in a number of documents from Canada over
the last dozen years and whether the emphasis on citizenship needs to
return to encourage trust and participation?

Mick

http://greatemacipator.com