I'm sharing one of my The New York Review "gift links": an interesting essay by Peter E. Gordon about the philosopher Habermas, who passed away this year. Insofar as Habermas thought about how civil society is predicated on good-faith rational discourse, I think it has implications for how media - at least good-faith media in a culturally pluralistic democracy - ought to conduct itself. One paragraph from the piece to that effect:

Habermas proposed that we examine our concept of democratic procedure: we must explain why the consensus that emerges from discussion has any legitimacy. The key, he argued, lies in communication itself. Rationality for Habermas is not an independent or metaphysical force that directs us from above; it is the ongoing work of making ourselves understood. Rationality is a social practice: a web that we weave with one another and that binds us to a fragile consensus fashioned from argument alone. Power, of course, is an inevitable feature of social life. But if we wish to explain why one arrangement would be preferable to another, we must distinguish between power that is justified and power that is secured by force alone. Groups may adhere to a common belief because it is buttressed by mere authority. A legitimate consensus, however, is one based on reasons.

The main tension of the essay is: is Habermas irrelevant? Is rational discourse impossible in modern society? Gordon concludes:

Now that Habermas is gone, the task of understanding his legacy will be left to readers who are willing to forgo polemic and are still capable of reading with care. A realist despite his ideals, 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 seems as endangered as the polar bears that find themselves adrift on ice floes in warming seas. Habermas once referred to his teachers Adorno and Horkheimer as practicing a “strategy of hibernation.” But one might now say the same of Habermas himself. For a younger generation of readers, he looks increasingly like a distant memory or an emblem of his time. But his insights cannot be so blithely dismissed. To honor his ideals will require more than memorials; it will require that we create the conditions of equality and inclusion in which reason still has a chance.