Should we take sides?: Girard, Mouffe, et al on graceful divisiveness

• Authors: Christopher Adam Haw

Abstracts

EN

This paper interprets the rhetoric and social phenomena of “taking sides” and “scapegoating” amidst radical societal division. Exploring the social mechanics of unity and division, I visit the work of René Girard and Chantal Mouffe, who offer a lucid ambivalence regarding the dilemma that neutrality is a practical impossibility. And in turning to implications of their shared paradox-that to be genuinely “peaceful” may require graceful divisiveness-I consider cases and theory on nonviolently fomenting conflict. In contrast with certain liberal social theories of transcending division, this paper treats the desire for politics beyond hegemony-or politics without a scapegoat-as something of an eschatological ideal, toward which Girard, Mouffe, and others offer a tension-filled, crypto-Augustinian, agonistic pluralism.

Keywords

EN

René Girard; Chantal Mouffe; Agonism; Division; Divisiveness; Unity

• Publisher: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Chrześcijańskiej Akademii Teologicznej w Warszawie
• Journal: Studia z Teorii Wychowania
• Year: 2023
• Volume: XIV(2 (43))
• Pages: 97-129

Dates

published

2023

Contributors

author

Christopher Adam Haw

• University of Scranton, USA

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Identifiers

DOI

10.5604/01.3001.0053.9076

Biblioteka Nauki

36799953