Education and early works of German sociologist Jürgen Habermas were heavily influenced by the neo-Marxist Frankfurt School of critical theory. Later he developed his theoretical approach that was represented in the two-volume book The Theory of Communicative Action (1984, in German 1981). In this book, Habermas introduces a distinction between two basic aspects of any society - "lifeworld" and "system". The lifeworld is a theoretical concept introduced to sociological theory by Alfred Schütz. The lifeworld is an area where symbolic communication takes place, or, as Habermas calls it, "communicative action", between people. Culture, personalities, meanings, and symbols are the basis of communication, that is, communicative action. Within the lifeworld, actors (people) strive to achieve a common understanding. That common understanding is a product, but also the direction of communication and practical activities of people. The realm of the lifeworld is the focus of Alfred Schütz's phenomenology and George Herbert Mead's symbolic interactionism, and it is precisely these theoretical approaches that Habermas uses to study this realm.

On the other hand, the "system" represents a completely different analytical level. In Habermas's terminology, "system" means what functionalism and systems theory call the social system. The system understood in this way has its own structure, and each part of that structure has the function of achieving a harmonious integration of the entire system. The integration of the system is achieved through the instrumental rationality of the actors. If we applied the terminology of Max Weber to Habermas's theory, then the integration of lifeworld would be achieved through the „value rational action“ of actors, and the integration of the system through the „goal rational action“ of actors. The lifeworld consists of societies, cultures, and personalities.

Communicative action achieves the reproduction of the lifeworld by maintaining culture, integrating society, and forming individual personalities. Communicative action contains both cognitive and normative elements, because knowledge and understanding between speakers are achieved through it, and social norms are also established. The communicative action should provide answers to the four most important questions: 1) what is understandable; 2) what is true; 3) what is right (in the ethical and moral sense); 4) whether the speaker really believes in what he is saying.

These four questions are ‘validity claims’, that is, qualities that every communication should possess: ‘intelligibility’, ‘truth’, ‘moral rightness’, and ‘sincerity’. The rationalization of the lifeworld happens when the best answers to these questions are achieved in an open discussion, and the basis of consensus is the strength of the arguments in the discussion. This ideal goal of communicative rationality Habermas calls the “ideal speech situation”, in which only the “force of the better argument” exist. The opposite situation is “systematically distorted communication”. Habermas believed that in modern society, the lifeworld achieves that ideal speech situation, which leads to greater differentiation between different elements of the lifeworld, that is, between society, culture, and personality.

The system is maintained through instrumental and strategic action, which, during social evolution, becomes increasingly more rationalized, which leads to progressive differentiation and increasing complexity of the system. During this evolution, individual subsystems become more and more self-sustaining and isolated, and, at the same time, the system itself becomes more and more separated from the lifeworld. In the modern age, the system is beginning to exercise increasing control over the lifeworld, and this process Habermas called "colonization of lifeworld". Although both the system and the lifeworld go through their own processes of rationalization (each of which has a separate and different internal logic), in the end, the system becomes the one that exercises increasing domination over the lifeworld.

This dominance becomes especially pronounced through two areas of the system - economy, and politics. In the field of economy, capitalism, through money, markets, and mass media, limits the possibilities of open public discussion. In the field of politics, a centralized and bureaucratized state has similar effects on the lifeworld. Thus, a pseudo-public sphere is created in which bureaucratically closed ways of communication dominate. Habermas views modernity as an unfinished project, and for that project to be realized, the system and the lifeworld must be reconnected into one harmonious dialectical relationship, where each sphere will mutually strengthen the other. New social movements are the best example and engine that will enable the realization of the potential that modernity has.

Books:

Habermas. Communication and the Evolution of Society (1979, in German 1976);

-    The Theory of Communicative Action (1984, in German 1981).