Genuine rationalization requires domination-free public communication, not administrative expertise

Evidence

Rationalization at the level of the institutional framework can only take place through the medium of linguistically mediated interaction itself, namely by releasing the barriers to communication. Public and unimpeded communication, free from relations of domination, concerning the appropriateness and desirability of principles and standards that can serve as guides to action, in the light of the sociocultural repercussions of subsystems of purposive action that are continuing to developcommunication of this sort at every level of the political and repoliticized processes of forming a consensus is the only medium in which something approaching `rationalization’ is possible. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2704

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Habermas’s communicative/rationalization counter-proposal to technocratic consciousness — the core of his theory of communicative action.
• XREF: Core statement of Habermas’s ideal speech situation and consensus theory of truth, foundational to his later work. — connects to: Political legitimacy requires free speech, association, and representation — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1248; Treating communication problems as technical faults masks a political choice favoring dominant elites; Technical rationality makes irrational social control appear reasonable and rational — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 124 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Treating communication problems as technical faults masks a political choice favoring dominant elites #corroborates (0.88)
• Technical rationality makes irrational social control appear reasonable and rational #corroborates (0.85) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 124
• Power is code-guided communication, not a property possessed by anyone #corroborates (0.75)
• Political legitimacy requires free speech, association, and representation #corroborates (0.72) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1248
• Elite silence follows the ideal of value-free rational professionalism #complicates (0.70) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 356