The Terministic Filter of Security: Realism, Feminism and International Relations Theory Page: 46
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acknowledging the importance of understanding the process of distinguishing argument
in a communicative public sphere (Goodnight, Communication Monographs 272).
Fraser is critical of Habermas. She is even critical of his example of a capitalist
literary society which developed in response to the withering of the aristocracy and the
rise of a new merchant class. Habermas characterized the society as built around
relatively open debate and explained how it created dialectical space for discussion that
previously had not existed. In that way he hoped to illustrate his principles of
communicative action and an epistemology built around communication as philosophy as
well as art. Fraser argues that other authors dispute Habermas, even suggesting the male
coffee house debates fetishized a developing salon culture as effeminate and aristocratic -
- thus denying again the possibilities for feminine agency (Fraser 78).
Fraser's claim is that the so-called bourgeois public was never the whole public in
the way that Habermas describes it. The public is more likely an amalgam of competing
forces, counterpublics and resistance movements comprised of not just the bourgeois, but
also out-groups such as minorities and women (Fraser 75). She thus disputes Habermas'
claim that a public sphere based on a multitude of perspectives emerged as a result of
modernity. Instead she argues that the voices of women and minorities were always there,
however, modernity is a hegemony and not overt repression. It survives through the
manufacturing of consent. Thus the appearance of free and open dialogue is an important
part of its legitimating potential (Fraser 76). She describes the monolithic public she
believes emerges from Habermas' work:
(T)he official bourgeois public sphere is the institutional vehicle for a major
historical transformation in the nature of political domination. This is the shift46
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Mueller, Eric. The Terministic Filter of Security: Realism, Feminism and International Relations Theory, thesis, December 2001; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc3040/m1/49/: accessed June 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .