Widening the public sphere turns reasoned debate into interest conflict.

Evidence

The public sphere had extended itself, but had thereby also become a battefield for competing interests which only diverged further and further from the ideal of using debate as a non-violent method of determining what was practically necessary for the general interest. … Whenever the public sphere extended itself and included non-bourgeois social strata, the theorists of the bourgeoisie either disparaged the broader public as a mass which was dominated by momentary passions and incapable of identifying what was rational and true; or they redefined the public sphere as consisting of an experienced and responsible élite. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 586

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Names the paradox at the heart of public-sphere theory: inclusion itself erodes the deliberative ideal, and elites respond by either dismissing the mass or narrowing the public to experts.
• XREF: Resonates with Communication as Culture’s argument that future-oriented discourse masks the loss of a genuine public sphere. — connects to: Minor-party TV debate inclusion widened Britain’s political imagination. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1776