Friday, August 03, 2007

Friday Dinner Party Conversation Stopper

A well functioning democracy calls for a clash of legitimate democratic political positions.... If this adversarial configuration is missing, passions cannot be given a democratic outlet and the agonistic dynamics of pluralism are hindered. The danger arises that the democratic confrontation will therefore be replaced by a confrontation between essentialist forms of identification or non-negotiable moral values. When political frontiers become blurred, disaffection with political parties sets in and one witnesses the growth of other types of collective identities, around nationalist, religious or ethnic forms of identification.

- Chantal Mouffe, On the Political

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