Between Facts and Norms - Contributions to a ... - Blogs Unpad

488-- ------- --- ---- -- -- ----- ------------Appendix Ipregeneralized interest positions. But are not these two assumptionsthemselves unrealistic? Not entirely, so long as we are onlynormatively assessing the alternatives that are possible in principle.As we have seen, democratic procedures should produce rationaloutcomes insofar as opinion-formation inside parliamentary bodiesremains sensitive to the results of a surrounding informalopinion-formation in autonomous public spheres. No doubt thissecond assumption of an unsubverted political public sphere isunrealistic; properly understood, however, it is not utopian in a badsense. It would be realized to the extent that opinion-formingassociations developed, catalyzed the growth of autonomous publicspheres, and, in virtue of the natural visibility such associationsenjoy, changed the spectrum of values, issues, and reasons. Thiswould both innovativelyunleash and critically filter the elements ofdiscourse that have been channeled by the mass media, unions,associations, and parties, according to the dictates of power. In thefinal analysis, of course, the emergence, reproduction, and influenceof such a network of associations remains dependent on aliberal-egalitarian political culture sensitive to problems affectingsociety as a whole-a culture that is even jumpy or in a constantstate ofvibration, and thus responsive.4.3Let us assume that complex societies would be open to suchfundamental democratization. In that case, we are immediatelyconfronted with objections that conservatives since Edmund Burkehave repeatedly marshaled against the French Revolution and itseffects.26 In this final round of reflection, we must take up thearguments that such thinkers as Joseph de Maistre and Louis deBonald have used to remind overly naive believers in progress ofthe limits of what can be done. The overextended project of a selforganizingsociety, so the argument goes, carelessly disregards theweight of traditions, organically developing reserves and resourcesthat cannot be created at will. As a matter of fact, the instrumentalismunderlying a practice that directly attempts to realize theoryhas had disastrous effects. Robespierre already set up an oppositionbetween revolution and constitution: the Revolution exists for warand civil war, the Constitution for the victorious peace. From Marx