I love the blog name Java Jesus, you'll see what I mean. Sorry to pollute this blog with something like this. Don't read it if you don't wanna.
Below is the origin of the term "the public sphere", coined by Jurgen Habermas in 1962. It is directly from the concept of "public sphere" that the term "Blogosphere" emerged. Read from the Wikipedia article:
"Jürgen Habermas wrote extensively on the concept of the public sphere, using accounts of dialogue that took place in coffee houses in 18th century England. It was this public sphere of rational debate on matters of political importance, made possible by the development of the bourgeois culture centered around coffeehouses, intellectual and literary salons, and the print media that helped to make parliamentary democracy possible and which promoted ENLIGHTENMENT IDEALS (see below) of equality, human rights and justice. The public sphere was guided by a norm of rational argumentation and critical discussion in which the strength of one's argument was more important than one's identity.
According to Habermas, a variety of factors resulted in the eventual decay of the bourgeois public sphere of the Enlightenment. Most importantly, structural forces, particularly the growth of a commercial mass media, resulted in a situation in which media became more of a commodity – something to be consumed – rather than a tool for public discourse."
Oh yeah, ENLIGHTENMENT IDEALS? This is what Habermas concluded late in life:
"Christianity has functioned for the normative self-understanding of modernity as more than a mere precursor or a catalyst. Egalitarian universalism, from which sprang the ideas of freedom and social solidarity, of an autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, of the individual morality of conscience, human rights, and democracy, is the direct heir to the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of continual critical appropriation and reinterpretation. To this day, there is no alternative to it. And in the light of the current challenges of a postnational constellation, we continue to draw on the substance of this heritage. Everything else is just idle postmodern talk."
CAFFECCLESIOLOGY? Habermas was also a driving force in deeloping the linguistic school epistemology (particularly, applying it to society and government) whence sprang our current theological notion of a "divine conversation". From which, of course, comes the trendy Emergent buzzword "conversation."
I RECOMMEND: Eugene Peterson's "Christ Plays in Ten-thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology." It is magnificent. It plays out the divine conversation, God's symbols and Man's praxis.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I came here from Robo's blog.
I shouldn't have come so late at night, though...
Because there are SO MANY SYLLABLES in these words. I will revisit when I'm awake. Thanks for making me want to think.
You said no comments needed, but how could I resist making it two comments in a row from separate scotts? All scotts, all the time!
I sort of became slowly immersed into the blogosphere about three years ago, even as I made fun of the whole blogging trend. At first, I had purposely avoided them when the term was gaining steam in 2001-2003 -- they were all the rage at library conferences I attended, which is probably one of the reasons I was avoiding them. But in the last three years, I've really come to love the open dialogue that exists -- you can get comments on a subject from people from so many backgrounds. I've developed blog relationships with people that I'd never have a chance of meeting in real life. People from all over the world with such a diverse range of thoughts and beliefs. A lot of really smart, really interesting people -- that I'll admittedly most likely never ever meet.
And all of that takes place in a little comment box, a forum where anyone can remark on what you write about. It's such a simple concept, yet a great tool for that "coffeehouse public discourse." And people can be themselves, or they can be anonymous. They can use logical arguments, or they can just troll to get a rise out of people.
For someone like me, someone that likes to write, likes to converse, and likes to occasionally argue, it's perfect. Because what fun is that "divine conversation" if it's only occuring between people with a similar mindset?
You're just jealous because the blogging community didn't give The Daily Journal proper credit for starting the revolution back in '98.
Dumb?? The guy is named Jurgen! How can we be dumb if we're quoting people named JURGEN???
Post a Comment