"When philosophy paints its grey in grey then has a shape of life grown old. By philosophy's grey in grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of dusk." -- G.W.F. Hegel, 'Preface', Philosophy of Right.
|
|
'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainity and agitation distinquish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.' Marx
|
|
|
Mouffe on liberalism, democracy & Schmitt #2
« Previous |
|Next »
|
|
|
December 24, 2006
In The Return of the Political Chantal Mouffe's engagement with Schmitt acknowledges that he was right to point out the deficiencies of liberal individualism with respect to the political, despite the real gain made in individual freedom. In the chapter on Liberalism and Democracy Mouffe says:
Many of the problems facing liberal democracies today stem from the fact that politics has been reduced to an instrumental activity, to the selfish pursuit of private interests. The limiting of democracy to a mere set of neutral procedures, the transformation of citizens into political consumers, and the liberal insistence on the supposed 'neutrality' of the state, have emptied politics of all substance. It has been reduced to economics and stripped of all ethical components.(p.111)
She says that though there is an increasing awareness of the need to revive political philosophy amongst political theorists, the contributions made by Kantian rights-based liberals, such as John Rawls, amount to an evasion of the political Mouffe states that:
..by failing to distinquish properly between moral discourse and political discourse and by using a mode of reasoning specific to moral discourse, he [Rawls] is unable to recognize the nature of the political. Conflicts, antagonisms, relations of power disappear and the field fo politics is reduced to a rational process of negotiation amongst private interests under the constraints of morality. (p.113)
Mouffe says that this is a typical liberal vision of a plurality of interests that can be regulated without the need for a superior level of political decision-making. Hence the question of sovereignty is evaded. This is why Mouffe needs to engage with Schmitt--- he recognized that the defining feature of politics is struggle and antagonism, and he also has an uncompromising critique of liberal rationalism and universalism and its lack of understanding of the political.
Mouffe states that under modern conditions, where the individual and the citizens do not coincide because private and public have separated, a reflection on the autonomous values of the political is required. Therefore:
the elaboration of a liberal democratic political philosophy should deal with the specific values of the liberal democratic regime, it's principles of legitimacy or, to use Montesquieu's term, its 'political principles.' Those are the principles of equality and liberty for all; they constitute the political common good which is distinctive of such a regime.
Mouffe says that there are competing interpretations of the principles of equality and freedom but then says that the common good can never be actualized. It has to forever remain a foyer virtuel to which we must constantly refer but which cannot have a real existence. Why so? Why cannot we speak of the common good of the public sphere? What is the argument?
Mouffe says that while politics in a liberal democracy aims at:
...creating a 'we' , at constructing a political community, a fully inclusive political community can never be achieved since, as Schmitt tells us, in order to construct a 'we' it must be distinquished from a 'them' , and that means establishing a frontier, defining an 'enemy'. There will therefore exist a permanent 'constitutive outside', as Derrida has shown us, an exterior to the community that makes its existence possible.
Though this can be granted, the common good need not be a 'we' as Mouffe claims: --it can be national interest, national security, the democratic rule of citizens, or a good life. Why cannot 'the good life' cannot have a real existence? Why cannot we say that some modes of life are better than others?
start
|
|
|
| | Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 9:57 PM | Permalink |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
