The Carnivalization of the Public Sphere

Abstract

The rise of the market economy in turn prompted individualism, humanism, and the separation of a private sphere (household) and its personal interests as a realm apart from the public realms of work and the state that together eventually enabled the rise of “civil society.” Within civil society, there emerged a “bourgeois public sphere” (Habermas 1962) as a cultural realm where pamphlets, newspapers, and letters were discussed in salons, taverns, and restaurants. Here, private people could become a “public,” groups that could shape public opinion and have political impact notwithstanding dynastic rule. Indeed, the bourgeois critiques of the aristocracy foreshadowed their claims to represent the “people” which fostered the ascent of the bourgeoisie and shaping market society.