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The family and ambiguity : the politics of alternative conceptions of self and society.
In this work I argue on the one hand that the modern family of the west deserves criticism for its role in the persistence of unmet need, of hurtful and unnecessary inequality, and of a harmful management, denial and denigration of difference. On the other hand, I also argue that the modern family deserves some defending, both for its role in creating us as people for whom the legitimacy of our order can be an issue, and because it is a locus of much that people experience as worthwhile. I am concerned in this work not only with the ambiguity of the modern family, but also with the general problem posed by ambiguity and affirmation. I approach this issue from the point of view on an ontology of discordance. By this view, each way of constructing a self (and so any possible way of forming society) necessarily involves exclusion and loss, and perhaps means denial and denigration as well. I do not think, however, that this fact is necessarily any cause for pessimism, as there are still grounds on which to defend social order as an achievement. In particular the fact of discordance calls on us to create forms of order which acknowledge their own impositional quality. This means that we must create greater institutional space for unmanaged difference. Along these lines, I affirm the importance, in modern conditions, of maintaining a category of family, but by this term I mean only a relation whereby child care and household are accorded some distance from the state and from the public realm. The point is that we should avoid detailing what constitutes a family and instead provide vastly increased across the board support for multiple forms of householding. In particular we need to support all the individuals who care for and protect children. My conclusion is that under modern conditions this kind of minimalist defense of family best serves the causes of equality for women, space for difference, and the end of the imposition of social class
Political Polarization as Disagreement Failure
A few events in recent American history are analyzed as “disagreement failures,” while others are described as exemplifying “disagreement success.” These terms are defined in order to support the conclusion that deliberative democracy requires both the celebration of disagreement and the crossing of multiple borders through dialogue. Such a “democracy of conversation” more specifically requires a culture that explicitly celebrates disagreement as an activity, meaning that it treats actual engagement in disagreement as a part of a life well-lived, and that it therefore routinely pushes for the inclusion of as many “sides” as possible in public talk. Supported in this way, cross-border, public conversation would be inherently democratic, community-building, and anti-totalitarian. Held regularly, such talk would help participants to see issues from multiple points of view, and would do so without asking them to give in to the non-thinking of mere tolerance. People who take part in such conversations would be more likely to face up to difficult issues politicians often avoid, and politicians would both be pushed and enabled to do better. In addition, such disagreement practice would cultivate respect for humanity, as participants observe themselves and others making sense, being civil, and in general doing a good job under presssure