2.2.2 PARTICULARISM DISPOSITION OF DEMOCRACY
In this section, I discuss the dominant strands of particularism. The particularist arguments enrich our understanding of the cultural and communal underpinnings of political life in democratic societies. According to these perspectives, normative judgments about the development and improvement of democratic practices must only be sought out in reference to particular socio-cultural traditions and configurations. By “particularism” the advocates intend to convey two very distinct, yet overlapping, strands of thought: one emphasizing the importance of identity and difference, another of the shared values and traditions vis-à-vis democratic norms and values (Ellison, 1999). In the case of the former, …show more content…
What renders democracy unique as both a political system a political value, they would counter, is its ability to give expression to longstanding local traditions, shared values, and common understandings. Local customs and traditions, communitarians argue, condition the conduct of politics in society, and they are different from place to place. Furthermore, communitarians argue that it is certainly the case that no two democracies – even in the liberal democratic West – operate in the same way, share in the same social, political or economic values, or even agree with one another on the basic tenets of democratic citizenship. Thus, a just and coherent conception of democratic legitimacy must provide a convincing account of the mutual constitution of democratic ideals and local cultural traditions in both moral and political terms (Chua, …show more content…
As indicated above, the principal expositors of the particularism perspective in contemporary political theory are those arguing for a “radical” or “agonistic” and “communitarian” models of democracy. There are three radical and agonistic approaches regarding the particularism disposition of democracy: the ‘perfectionist,’ the ‘adversarial,’ and the ‘inclusive.’ Owen represents perfectionist agonism, with Mouffe representing adversarial agonism, and both Connolly and Tully representing inclusive agonism (Jones, 2014). Owen’s perfectionist agonism assumes that society is characterised by ‘a plurality of conflicting conceptions of the good,’ (Owen, 2002), and that each of these conceptions is ‘the product of a complex history of the entwinement of judgement and agency in the life of a community’ (Owen, 1995). On this view, the range of societal beliefs emerges out of our diverse interactions with the world, rendering our perspectives necessarily ‘embodied.’ Owen thereby rejects Kant’s categorical imperative for assuming the existence of universal morals: there is no reasonable demand that all people act in the same way because different people may be committed to different evaluations that they experience as necessity under the aegis of eternal recurrence. Rather, Owen acknowledges
In this section, I discuss the dominant strands of particularism. The particularist arguments enrich our understanding of the cultural and communal underpinnings of political life in democratic societies. According to these perspectives, normative judgments about the development and improvement of democratic practices must only be sought out in reference to particular socio-cultural traditions and configurations. By “particularism” the advocates intend to convey two very distinct, yet overlapping, strands of thought: one emphasizing the importance of identity and difference, another of the shared values and traditions vis-à-vis democratic norms and values (Ellison, 1999). In the case of the former, …show more content…
What renders democracy unique as both a political system a political value, they would counter, is its ability to give expression to longstanding local traditions, shared values, and common understandings. Local customs and traditions, communitarians argue, condition the conduct of politics in society, and they are different from place to place. Furthermore, communitarians argue that it is certainly the case that no two democracies – even in the liberal democratic West – operate in the same way, share in the same social, political or economic values, or even agree with one another on the basic tenets of democratic citizenship. Thus, a just and coherent conception of democratic legitimacy must provide a convincing account of the mutual constitution of democratic ideals and local cultural traditions in both moral and political terms (Chua, …show more content…
As indicated above, the principal expositors of the particularism perspective in contemporary political theory are those arguing for a “radical” or “agonistic” and “communitarian” models of democracy. There are three radical and agonistic approaches regarding the particularism disposition of democracy: the ‘perfectionist,’ the ‘adversarial,’ and the ‘inclusive.’ Owen represents perfectionist agonism, with Mouffe representing adversarial agonism, and both Connolly and Tully representing inclusive agonism (Jones, 2014). Owen’s perfectionist agonism assumes that society is characterised by ‘a plurality of conflicting conceptions of the good,’ (Owen, 2002), and that each of these conceptions is ‘the product of a complex history of the entwinement of judgement and agency in the life of a community’ (Owen, 1995). On this view, the range of societal beliefs emerges out of our diverse interactions with the world, rendering our perspectives necessarily ‘embodied.’ Owen thereby rejects Kant’s categorical imperative for assuming the existence of universal morals: there is no reasonable demand that all people act in the same way because different people may be committed to different evaluations that they experience as necessity under the aegis of eternal recurrence. Rather, Owen acknowledges