Last Saturday, Jürgen Habermas, one of the last great European philosophers, died. Habermas showed that constitutions, elections or courts are not enough to guarantee democratic legitimacy. For democracy to exist, he said, dialogue is necessary about the way society is organized, between people who disagree with the proposals on the table.
According to Habermas, it is in the public space, made up of newspapers, parliaments, networks of associations, universities and, today, also digital platforms, that societies form collective opinions and wills. The democratic promise is demanding and decisions are only truly legitimate when they can be accepted, with enthusiasm or resignation, by all those affected, after processes of debate in which the strength of the best argument counts, not the strength of money, position or communication machine.
This ideal of communicative rationality is not a naive description of a desired reality, but a criterion for criticizing those who refuse to participate in a rational public debate. Today, however, the distance between ideal and practice seems to become an insurmountable abyss. Contemporary populism organizes politics not as a confrontation of arguments, but as a clash of identities. Instead of adversaries with whom one argues, one points the finger at enemies to defeat. Instead of deliberation, we have permanent emotional mobilization.
Social networks accelerate this process. The logic of algorithms rewards outrage, simplification and scandal. The public sphere, which Habermas imagined as a common space for debate, fragments into bubbles where incompatible narratives, alternative data and mutual suspicions circulate. We talk more than ever, but we listen less and less.
Habermas himself described this risk by remembering that when the logic of power, profit or manipulation invades everyday communication, dialogue oriented towards understanding is replaced by strategies of influence. Institutions remain, but they lose the common ground that supports them. Distrust grows, the accusation of “fake news” becomes trivialized, the idea of factual truth becomes suspect and science becomes useless.
Remembering Habermas, in this context, is not just a gesture of justice towards one of the great thinkers of our time. It is also worth remembering that the defense of democracy begins before the vote and goes beyond chess between governments and opposition. It starts with the way we talk to each other, the willingness to justify positions, acknowledge uncomfortable facts, and revise opinions in light of better arguments.
This confidence in the emancipatory power of the word may seem fragile in the age of cynicism and political spectacle. But perhaps it is the last common ground we can still share in a plural society. The question Habermas leaves us with is simple: do we want to live in regimes that decide through the force of momentary majorities, fueled by manipulation and noise? Or do we want to live in democracies that still try to decide our common future by the force of the best argument? As a former American Ambassador to the UN said, “We are entitled to our opinions, but we are not entitled to our facts.”
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