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August 14, 2004
Henry Giroux does acknowledge social conservatism, but he does so in wholly negative terms. He says:
"As neoliberal ideology and corporate culture extend even deeper into the basic institutions of civil and political society, there is a simultaneous diminishing of non-commodified public spheres —those institutions such as public schools, independent bookstores, churches, noncommercial public broadcasting stations, libraries, trade unions and various voluntary institutions engaged in dialogue, education, and learning–that address the relationship of the individual to public life and foster social responsibility and provide a robust vehicle for public participation and democratic citizenship. In the vacuum left by diminishing democracy, religious zealotry, cultural chauvinism, xenophobia, and racism have become the dominant tropes of neoconservatives and other extremist groups eager to take advantage of the growing insecurity, fear, and anxiety that result from increased joblessness, the war on terror, and the unraveling of communities."
I accept the decline of democracy thesis thati s associated with the rise of neo-liberalism in the 1980s. However, social conservatism is reduced to religious zealotry, cultural chauvinism, xenophobia and racism.
What has happened to community, tradition and heritage? Is not liberalism a tradition?
The constellation of community, tradition and heritage offers an alternative to the standard liberal individualism of neo-liberalism; a different way of configuring the relationship between individual and society. A philosophically informed communitarianism would hold that:
it is not the case that the social world is composed of individuals;
the locus of value is not just the individual: it is also the community or institutions of which the individual is a member;
the range of values that need to be considered are not just individual ones: the values of recipriocity, trust, solidarity and tradition are important
These considerations cannot be reduced to religious zealotry, cultural chauvinism, xenophobia and racism.
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