Plurality

05-09-2016

By Hans Teerds

"Speech and action reveal this unique distinctness. Through them, men distinguish themselves instead of being merely distinct; these are the modes in which human beings appear to each other, not indeed as physical objects, but qua men." --Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition

Within architectural theory, the debate on public space has been highly affected through an ideal beyond these spaces: the ideal of encounters between strangers and the exchange of ideas, convictions, and beliefs. This ideal is linked to an ideal Western Democracy: the ideal of citizens discussing together things that matter, exchanging positions and through that developing a public opinion and ideally also making decisions. This of course is the ideal of the Agora in the Greek and Roman Polis, the Townhall meetings as were familiar to the American citizens.

Within architectural theory this idealized encounter of citizens finds its theoretical underpinnings in Jürgen Habermas 1962 book The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. The translation of this book in English in 1989 actually provoked the debate around public spaces amongst architects and architectural theorists, specifically through a pessimistic reading of the rise of gated communities, shopping malls, and theme parks. These new typologies in the urban landscape were understood as the concrete outcomes of the opposite movement in society: the urge to exclude strangers from the immediate domestic and leisurely environments.

Although it is Arendt who values the agora and the Townhall meetings in her concept of the public realm, it is Habermas’ concept of the public sphere as a sphere in-between the sphere of the state and the market that feeds the discussion in architectural theory. Habermas claims in his reading of the rise of the bourgeois public and their meetings in coffee houses and salons in the 18^th century, that the emergence of the public sphere enabled society to wrest itself from the feudal system. Public debate about current affairs created a new sphere in society, somewhere between feudal state and market. In other words, the public sphere comprised the space for the exchange of ideas and beliefs, space for social conversation and for the development of a public opinion, which was neither coloured by government intervention nor susceptible to market forces. On the contrary: the twin spheres of government and market had to learn to relate to this new public sphere. This idea of the rise of ‘a public’ actually emphasizes the public sphere as a meta-sphere, in which all local debates and meetings and interactions merge into a meta-public-opinion. Habermas values the outcomes of the discussions in the coffeehouses, in the newspapers and public squares, the emergence of a ‘consensus on the common good’ or the ‘public opinion.’ This consensus is not the same as the aim of state policy or the market, but it is also not opposed to either the state or the market.

As the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor has argued, this perspective of the meta-public sphere actually clarifies the relationship between the public on the one hand, and the two other major spheres in society of market and state (which of course also only are to be seen as meta-spheres, in which the different concrete local activities merge into an intangible sphere). The modern state, Taylor argues, actually only derives its legitimacy from this public sphere, namely from the extent to which the political project serves the collective pursuit that is made known through the public sphere. Habermas, we might conclude, emphasizes the public as a unity – an image quite opposite to Arendt’s understanding.

If Habermas imagines the public sphere as a space of consensus, Arendt sees the public realm as a space of plurality. As shown in the quote above, Arendt’s emphasis on action as the very aim and activity of the public realm immediately takes plurality as the presupposition and outcome of public activities. Action reveals the differences, rather then the similarities, since it is based upon our different histories and unique experiences. The very appearance of the someone in public space reveals these differences, since no one acts and speaks the same. It is this emphasis on action and speech that helps to resist the temptation to see the public realm as the space of a singular public and ‘its’ opinion. In other words, because of her focus on action itself (and not on the results of these actions), Arendt emphasises instead the multi-dimensional and multi-perspectival views of the actors as the very character of the public realm. Arendt even is not focussed on the question how political institutions can offer space for action and speech in a meaningful way, that is, in such a way that it also orderly organizes society and gives ‘the public’ a voice in governing of themselves. Arendt strictly stays at the level of action and speaking itself, of appearing in public as unfolding the plurality of human beings.

When asked about the aim of action and speaking during a conference in Toronto in 1972, Arendt chose metaphors in which the single participant is important (and is not tempted to speak about the common good or the common future, even not of peacefully living together). Of course, for Arendt the aim of action is relevant too. Real political action, she states, is recognized and joined, it gains followers, and only thereby grows in power. If there is a powerful movement that can resist the market or the state, if there ever will be a revolution, this only can be when single action wins recognition, praise, endorsement and approval. ‘You can only act in concert’, Arendt states during the conference. In the choice of ‘concert’ as a metaphor, it is immediately clear that in this political realm every single action counts, and every perspective still is tangible and sensible. All strings and horns, all voices and tones work together towards this ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’, this total artwork – but all separate instruments are needed in order to create this overwhelming spectacle. Consensus in this sense seems to be the opposite aim compared to a concert, since consensus aims to mediate between the different voices in order to get the single perspective the political institutions can react upon. The metaphor of the concert however also shows that something shared is needed as well: the music joins the participants. One might state that the concert best is to seen as a Jazz composition, where the single actors can start new narratives, while others anticipate on these changes in tone, direction, and composition. According to Arendt, action and re-action are never pre-scripted. One cannot foresee the outcome of one’s actions. That is actually one of the risky aspects of action: one can start something, but not predict what the outcome might be. One does not know how action is received, accepted, and how others will re-act.

Of course, metaphors have a limited use, and constructing conclusions upon an interpretation of the metaphor is quite risky. Nevertheless it rightly can be stated that although ‘action in concert’ does not request consensus, but surely does require cohesion. There should be a ‘certain amount of convergence in interpretation,’ as Seyla Benhabib has argued. If we take the ideal beyond physical public space towards this direction, moving a bit away from the Habermas perspective, we then might conclude that public space needs to be ‘a space in which a collectivity becomes present to itself and recognizes itself through a shared interpretive repertoire.’ To my understanding this is a better perspective for architectural theory: the investigation of the world as a network of public spaces needs to start with the rejection of the possibility of a public opinion, but should see public space as the stage of a concert, in which a plurality of participants acting together repeatedly form a terrific new composition. Actual public spaces—even those dominated by the state or the market, the gated community, the theme park, and the shopping mall—have the potential to offer this cohesion between actor and his public – although it is true that these spaces and their urge to exclude differences are not the most potential one to let this concert to happen.