|
September 7, 2004
One way of addressing the lack of the political in Adorno and Horkheimer is through citizenship, which means membership in a political community of the nation-state. It also means loyalty to those members and sharing in a political community. Citizenship is at the core of the politics of democratic nation states.
Yet citizenship is often forgotten, even by those whose concerns are about defending democracy. Thus Cornell West's paper about democracy matters in Logos barely mentions citizenship. He says that the:
"...three dominant dogmas of free-market fundamentalism, aggressive militarism, and escalating authoritarianism are snuffing out the democratic impulses that are so vital for the deepening and spread of democracy in the world. In short, we are experiencing the sad American imperial devouring of American democracy. This historic devouring in our time constitutes an unprecedented gangsterization of America—an unbridled grasp at power, wealth, and status. And when the most powerful forces in a society—and an empire—promote a suffocation of democratic energies, the very future of genuine democracy is jeopardized."
Now citizenship is mentioned as in this paragraph:
"No democracy can flourish against the corruptions of plutocratic, imperial forces—or withstand the temptations of militarism in the face of terrorist hate—without a citizenry girded by these three moral pillars of Socratic questioning, prophetic witness, and tragicomic hope. The hawks and proselytizers of the Bush administration have professed themselves to be the guardians of American democracy, but there is a deep democratic tradition in this country that speaks powerfully against their nihilistic, antidemocratic abuse of power and that can fortify genuine democrats today in the fight against imperialism....The greatest intellectual, moral, political, and spiritual resources in America that may renew the soul and preserve the future of American democracy reside in this multiracial, rich democratic heritage."
But no account of citizenship is even gestured to.
I raise this example because in the Australian context the conventional tendency is to hollow out citizenship by downgrading the link to a national culture. We are offered an account of citizenship in civic terms of democracy, diversity, tolerance and the rule of law. Citizens on this account do not think of themselves as primarily Australians.
This defines citizenship in terms of universal liberal democratic values and downplays the way national culture and patriotism underpin the federal political community. We are offered a citizenship defined by political institutions divorced from a national culture. A national culture is regarded with suspicion, if not hostility.
|
Hailing from the united states, I almost think that de-linking is a good thing. We're particularly nationalist and jingoistic over here, and it's disheartening how that linkage has served to preclude other formations of citizenships and publics. I'm reminded of Agamben's Homo Sacer, in which the nation-state takes a people and transforms them into its "population."