The Era of Rational Discourse Is Over

Donald Trump made history in a way no one had ever dared: he was the first U.S. president to start a war without even bothering to lie to the public. He literally didn’t care whether people agreed or not: as he himself put it, the only thing that could stop him was “my morals. My mind. That's the only thing that can stop me.” We are accustomed to the idea that democracy is made up of debate, heated discussions and, above all, the opportunity to persuade or be persuaded. But if you think about it, this is the exception, not the rule. The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, who died in March at the age of 96, built his entire life on the conviction that democracy exists only where there is a genuine exchange of ideas, without exclusion and without threats. For him, all political power stems from the “communicative power of citizens,” and a just society is one in which “all questions, problems, and contributions are brought forward and processed in discourse and negotiation.” The argument put forward in this Note is clear: the era of rational discourse, Habermas’ era, is over. Today, technology has not made us more open to dialogue; rather, it has isolated us in bubbles where no one challenges our beliefs, and the leaders who perform best are those who no longer even want to convince—they just want to be looked at. Habermas was no ordinary theorist: he was born in Germany in 1929, grew up under Nazism, joined the Hitlerjugend, witnessed his father become an officer in the Wehrmacht, and then saw Germany divided and rebuilt. In the 1950s, at a time when academic philosophers were still former Nazis, he sided with Theodor Adorno and the Frankfurt School, becoming the voice of a generation that sought salvation from barbarism through reason. He wrote “The Public Sphere: A Theory of Habermas” in 1962: he recounts a time when the coffeehouses and salons of the 18th century were the places where ordinary people, for the first time, could discuss and judge the powerful. For him, that was the magic: the “dissolution of domination,” where ideas win only if they convince. But Habermas was clear-sighted: he knew that this ideal had never truly been achieved. Not in the 18th century, when the public consisted only of wealthy men, and not today, where public opinion is “a public sphere only in appearance,” manipulated by the media or rendered passive. And here comes the fact that changes the perspective: technology, Habermas said, was once the main obstacle to genuine debate—radio and TV spoke to everyone, but no one could respond. Then came the internet, which theoretically opened the door to everyone: anyone could become an author, publishers' vetoes were eliminated, and social media gave a voice to everyone. But instead of moving closer to the ideal, we have moved further away: quantity has destroyed quality. Today, he said in his final book in 2023, “digitalization is turning everyone into potential authors,” but the price is that anyone can shut themselves off in their own bubble, listening only to those who already think like them, and genuine debate disappears. The result? A democracy where people talk a lot but no longer listen to anyone, and the principle of “persuading” is replaced by that of “getting noticed.” There is one scene that makes all of this even more vivid: Habermas, now ninety years old, in Munich, in the November before his death, speaks of the “now almost irreversible dismantling of the oldest liberal-democratic regime,” namely the United States, due to the arbitrary expansion of executive power under Trump. Not only that, but Habermas argued that all language—every sentence we utter—is, or should be, a request for explanation, for consent. If someone tells you, “Earth is the third planet from the Sun,” they are asking you to agree that this is true; if they tell you, “Killing is wrong,” they are asking you to endorse this as right. But now, he said, most of our statements no longer ask for anything: they don't want to be true or right; they just want to be heard, shared, perhaps go viral. With his “exasperating frivolity,” Trump is the perfect social media figure: he doesn't want to convince; he just wants to be seen. And this, Habermas said, is the end of rational discourse – its time has truly come to an end. However, there is a question that almost no one asks: If democracy arises from debate, what remains when debate no longer interests anyone? And if the new currency of exchange is not truth but attention, what sense does it still make to speak of “public opinion”? Perhaps the real danger is not lying, but indifference—namely, the very loss of the desire to persuade or be persuaded. Today, politics is theater, not debate. The takeaway is this: when no one wants to convince anyone anymore, democracy doesn’t die suddenly—it hollows out from within. If this perspective has changed the way you view democracy, you can indicate it on Lara Notes with I'm In: choose whether it's a belief you feel is your own, an experience you've had, or simply a point of interest you want to explore. And if tomorrow at dinner you tell someone that Habermas envisioned a society where language is used to persuade and not just to shout, on Lara Notes you can tag those who were with you using Shared Offline—so that conversation lives on. This Note comes from The Atlantic and saves you 4 minutes of reading.