Ideal Speech Essay

709 Words3 Pages
Does “Ideal Speech” ever really take place? Habermas suggested in his arguments that ideal speech might be proliferated under the existing democratic mechanisms like the common law and state institutions. He further stated that all conservations should be aspired under an “ideal speech situation”. The first specification that Habermas made is about who should contribute to the dialogue. What he recommended is that everyone influenced by the decisions should have a chance to speak freely and all participants should have the same understanding of language and seek the common goals. As regards the participants of the dialogue, Habermas believed that the wider the consideration that any decision undergoes, the more legitimate the outcome is likely to be. In other words, he argued that if there can be more inclusion of marginalized voices; it is also more likely to achieve the most well-informed debate. As for the same understanding of language, Habermas used the law as an example as the common language among all citizens in one society to demonstrate how ideal speech situation as mentioned above can be taken place. In the “McLibel” case, one concerned couple criticized McDonald’s advertisements for targeting young children and depicting their food is of high nutrition value. At the end of the case, McDonald’s had to redeem their claims to truth in a law court, and the case showed that all citizens, no matter they are rich or poor, strong or weak, beautiful or ugly and so on, all of them can exercise certain control over the world that they are living in as long as there is a common understanding of language. In the case shown above, the common language among the citizens is the law so that they can achieve their goals. However, the situation in which Habermas suggested is actually too “ideal” to exist in reality. Chatal Mouffe, oriented her democratic theory
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