HABERMAS IS MY HERO!

Just kidding... I just wanted to see if anyone would click on that just to see what madness would drive me to say that Habermas is my hero... don't get me wrong, he is a great man and everything, but he is not my hero...anyway...

Habermas strives to extend the idea of the Public Sphere, an idea of the Enlightenment of the 18th century which I believe was started by (or at least attributed to) Kant. The public sphere is a theory that people can be faithful to the state or their job in public but be able to disagree with it in private. There is no need to continue being a soldier at home as well as on the battle field, although it is very hard to separate the two places. Habermas' idea is that a public sphere can be created in any place at any time even if it does not co-operate with the ideas of the public. People function in social groups and identify themselves with these groups. poeple also act in different domains; work, interaction and power. Everyone looks out for themselves through working, everyone must interact with other people to a certain degree and people are always trying to free themselves from power sources which contradict their ideologies.
In the 20th century, the idea of the public sphere is no longer talked about in public. Habermas sites coffee shops as a new medium for the public sphere. Wherever people are gathered with a common interest, the public sphere emerges. Stereotypically, coffee shops are full of people who are trying to get out from under "the man."
*tangent* yes, I do hang out in coffee shops thank you very much and if anyone has a problem with this assumption, get a nose ring and apply for jobs at various locations... the coffee shop owner won't bat an eyelash (and yes, I do realize I just opened up a discussion about people with nose rings, but I'm not going there right now).*end tangent*
People are constantly striving to make their situation better. The great thing about America is that we have the freedom to do this in public whereas other culture have to hide in basements to simply share a cup of coffee over conversations focused on tyrannical governments. The rhetorical part of this argument iswhen "speech acts" are brought in. Habermas speaks of constatives, regulative and avowals where people claim something which could be anything and the audience agrees to listen. The second describes the regulations inflicted upon the speaker and on the audience by the speaker. The third- avowals show the pathos of the speaker, what he hopes and feels and wishes or wonders. these types of speeches seem more idealistic and theorized than normals rhetoric but I think this form of speech is crucial to the advancement of society and of rhetoric