Photo by Korney Violin
Amid the recent street demonstrations throughout France, French President Emmanuel Macron met with high school representatives on October 23 to try to ease tensions, with the aim of “listening to the demands and concerns” they had raised. The public-school students had been protesting teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms, dilapidated school buildings, and an education system they felt was failing them. The meeting and “listening” sound very French and Cartesian, ironically coming from Macron who graduated from a prestigious high school and was awarded diplomas from two of France’s most elite graduate programs – Sciences Po and ENA.
Can dialogue be possible? Can we still agree on the conditions under which talking to one another might actually make a difference? What about the contrast between the French government’s invitation to dialogue with students and the scale of the security response surrounding it? What does it mean “to listen” when, before the meeting, it was announced that the areas for protesting the following day were limited, curfews imposed, and 70,000 police and gendarmes were to be deployed?
Is the tension between the invitation to dialogue and the exercise of power peculiar to France? Or does it point to a broader problem in democratic politics?
In the United States, for example, the obvious polarization between Democrats and Republicans obscures deeper challenges to dialogue. Well beyond simple voting results, are we witnessing challenges to the foundational idea of the importance of democratic political dialogue in general?
The recent death of Jürgen Habermas highlights this question. His Theory of Communicative Actionargued that democracy depends on a public sphere where actors strive for consensus through reason, assuming that language itself holds the potential for mutual understanding. When I ask if we are witnessing a challenge to the foundational democratic importance of dialogue, I am effectively asking if that Habermasian ideal has been irrevocably shattered.
As Peter Gordon writes in a New York Review of Books article on books by and about Habermas, “Over the course of his life Habermas sought to honor the principle that in a modern democracy the only legitimate force should be the unforced force of the better argument.”
By the time of his death, however, many felt that this principle had grown obsolete. “Habermas,” Gordon summarized some critics, “placed undue trust in the values of the Enlightenment and the promise of the ‘public sphere,’ a realm where reasonable debate serves as the training ground for democratic self-government.”
How to reconcile “the better argument” with current debates in the United States?
In Maine, Democratic nominee Troy Jackson told GOP Sen. Susan Collins to “shut up” after she suggested that a protester was one of his supporters. And in Alaska, Republican Senator Dan Sullivan questioned Democratic opponent Mary Peltola’s “character” while citing allegations she mistreated staff.
“I think that Alaskans have had it up to here with the lying and dishonesty,” Peltola said during another exchange. “Dan,” she retorted, “you should be ashamed of yourself,” CNN reported.
This is not just bad manners. Dialogue becomes difficult when people no longer agree on what counts as evidence, what constitutes a legitimate outcome, or whether an argument can ever change their minds.
Does anyone remember Richard Nixon and John Kennedy arguing about the defense of the offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu during the 1960 presidential debates? Nothing personal there.
Professor Gordon recognizes how far Habermas’s ideal of rational communication has fallen short of reality. “Today, his work reads like a promissory note for a rational and egalitarian society that never came to fruition,” he wrote, citing Habermas’ final interview entitled “Things Needed to Get Better.”
How to reconcile the vitriolic U.S. campaigns, Trumpism, and French street violence with Habermas’ ideal that he called “a discursive process of legislation”?
And, to add to the challenges to rational communication, Gordon makes an important point about process: “[Habermas] insisted that under conditions of cultural pluralism, traditional forms of solidarity secured by religion or national solidarity could no longer be valid. All that we should expect from a diverse citizenry is a shared commitment to liberal-democratic procedure.”
A “shared commitment to liberal-democratic procedure”! Like accepting who won the 2020 presidential election? In 1954, Joseph Welch exploded the McCarthy era when he asked the demagogic Senator from Wisconsin, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” All Democratic candidates now should simply ask their opponents, “Do you accept the results of the 2020 presidential election?” If there is a pause or no for an answer, there is no “shared commitment to liberal-democratic procedure.”
And what happens when there is no longer “a shared commitment to liberal-democratic procedure”? What happens when Trump says he has the right to an unconstitutional third presidential term?
Macron’s meeting with students and their representatives is indicative of where we are. The meeting lasted nearly three hours. Nathanaël Combary, president of the student group Renouveau lycéen, said Macron had listened, but the students were still waiting for concrete proposals. “We are not satisfied,” he said, calling on students to continue their mobilization. Another student representative, Pierre Sourzat, was more skeptical even before the meeting. “He will listen to us, he will pretend to have understood us and then there will be no follow-up,” Sourzat said.
At least the students and Macron met. Agreed. But what were the consequences? On October 24, the next day, over 400,000 people (the official figure) protested throughout France with no immediate policy consequences coming from the Élysée Palace.
The Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, did meet student representatives on October 26, alongside two education ministers. France’s public debt is about 119% of GDP, and there are endless budget debates about priorities. So when the government announced changes to Parcoursup, France’s online system for applying to higher education, more places in higher education, and money for school renovations, there was skepticism. The reforms included over 4 billion euros in loans for school renovations, as well as a further €1 billion for university facilities, according to the education minister. “We are managing to achieve some gains through mobilization, but they are still crumbs,” Sabrine Kharbach, a representative of the Student Union, said. Louis Letoublon, vice president of another student group, Les Lycéens!, told reporters after the meeting: “We can say that we’ve gained something: first, the government’s fear.”
The deeper question is whether listening can resolve a conflict when the participants disagree not only about policies but about the legitimacy of the institutions and procedures through which those policies are decided.
Gordon concludes: “Habermas knew that counting on the unforced force of the better argument was an unlikely wager, since it demands exposing oneself to reasonable criticism. Today, however, reasonableness itself may be going extinct. In our combative and digitalized environment, it [reasonableness] seems as endangered as the polar bears that find themselves adrift on ice floes in warming seas.”
The seas are indeed warming, and reasonableness is seriously afloat.
