Political liberals like John Rawls and Charles Larmore start from what they characterize as the 'fact' of pluralism, that is, the multiplicity of conceptions of the good that exist in modern democratic society. This leads to the 'liberal problem' of how to organize coexistence among people with different conceptions of the good. It is worth noting that they do not advocate pluralism because they believe diversity is particularly valuable, but rather because they consider it could not be eradicated without the use of state coercion. Theirs is a Lockean kind of thinking, based more on the reasons why pluralism should not be interfered with, than on recognition of its value....the central concern of such conceptions is the possibility of social unity under modern conditions in which there is a multiplicity of conflicting conceptions of the good life.--Chantal Mouffe (1993) "Politics and the Limits of Liberalism" in The Return of the Political, pp. 136-7.
Chantal Mouffe (recall; and here) is an astute critic of political liberalism, which is itself an evolving program, so her summary of it (even Rawls or Larmore) should not be accepted without hesitation. But I think she grasp here something central about the project: that it is motivated by the felt need to response to the existence of a plurality of conceptions of the good in modern states. The further underlying assumption is that such plurality is the central source of conflict and, if not checked, oppression. Mouffe interprets political liberalism as an attempt to privatize (and, thereby, contain) disagreement over conceptions of the good.
Mouffe is critical of this strategy, alongside an ethics first conception of political life, because she thinks it makes political liberalism incapable of grasping the nature of political life and the constructions of collective identities that accompany them. But it is notable that she accepts the motivational premise of political liberalism that some conceptions of the good are perhaps incompatible with what what she calls "modern democracy;" she offers as an example "a religion like Islam" (132 in her (1991) "pluralism and modern democracy").* So, not unlike the proponents of political liberalism, Mouffe takes conceptions of the good as a central challenge to political life. I think she and the theorists of political liberalism take conceptions of the good way too seriously.
To be sure Mouffe does not claim that it is impossible to "integrate" Islam into "modern democracy;" but with a nod to the "Rushdie Affair" she suggests "the problem is not easily solved." I have to admit that I was a bit taken aback by these remarks because in many ways Mouffe is, among those writing at the end of the cold war, the most perceptive about the forthcoming (and many of the present) challenges facing liberal democracies. She is very much worth re-reading for that reason alone.
One need not conceive of the Rushdie affair as a challenge of integrating islam into modern democracy.++ That Muslim citizens protested the publication of the novel was their right. Moreover, in quite a few liberal democracies at the time, freedom of speech was constrained by laws against blasphemy, and these laws have only been slowly removed (in the Netherlands as late as 2014).+ And such laws against blasphemy tend to be justified in terms of the state's compelling interest in maintaining public order and security. Hobbes and Spinoza would approve. (Interestingly, Rawls mentions this interest to justify the state's right to modestly regulate religious practices!)
Such justifications are not silly: if folk go around offending each other's religion, one can expect trouble. (In fact, Hobbes would suggest (recall this post on Bejan's book) that even a regular stream of modest micro-aggression is a cause for concern.) This is so even if the state itself is truly neutral. I don't mean to be taken to suggest that we need laws against blasphemy; their use may be worse than the problem they aim to remedy. But we can't also ignore that their removal seems to have opened the door to steady stream of insults directed at Muslims in particular.
Let me return to the Rushdie affair. A line was crossed when 1989 the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie and, in addition, this fatwa had the (financial and political) backing of the state of Iran. Notice, however, that one can object to this on many grounds, including Iranian interference with other countries's domestic affairs, state sponsorship of killing citizens from other states, and for encouraging Muslim citizens to violate the laws of their nation, etc. Khomeini here acted the way generations of popes acted after Henry VIII threw out the Catholic Church.
The Rushdie case says little about the possibilities of co-existence between Muslims and non-Muslims in liberal democracy. In part, this is so because liberal democracies have tools to combat incitement to violence. When youthful citizens who are Muslim radicalize such that they incline toward (religiously justified) violence we should treat this as a signal that something is amiss with the laws, (policing, education, job-market, the prison system) practices, and environments these kids grow up in. (Recall this post on the significance of recognition.) It is a peculiar fact that in Europe, recently, many would-be-terrorists and Jihadis first were criminals.
Some critics may think I am underestimating the problem. Surely, they will say, Islam is incompatible with the separation of Church and State? Before I answer that, it is worth noting a bias toward the United States; it is often forgotten that many other prosperous liberal democracies have an established Church (England, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Scotland). In quite a few other liberal democracies, church schools (including Muslim school) and even churches receive financial support (Germany, Netherlands, Norway, some Swiss cantons, etc.). While I think it wiser to have firmer Church/State separation than we find in much of Europe, one should avoid state hostility toward religion (characteristic of France and those it inspires) for this has tendency to generate the wrong sort of anger, resentment, and alienation. What these European cases show is that the rule of law and social peace are compatible with state support of institutional religion, including Islam.
I do not want to deny that some conceptions of the good are genuine obstacles to the functioning of liberal states, and that a few of these, if promoted by sufficient number of foreign enemies or citizens, threaten its survival. But as I said, this gives conceptions of the good too much motivational credit and mistakenly ignores not just other sources of sectarianism; but why these matters.
First, a useful reminder: a lot of separatist movements and (potential) civic unrest are rooted, for example, in linguistic and national/ethnic minorities or disparities in wealth. This is not to deny religion can't play an exacerbating role. But even in Northern Ireland, the problem wasn't caused by religious diversity, but by act of conquest and centuries of domination (in which religion became a marker of difference). Second, all kinds of political grievances may be presented as religious grievances, but this doesn't entail these can only be addressed or pacified in terms that would imply the religious encroachment on, or even take-over, of the state. It is not impossible (recall), in fact, that the flourishing of liberal democracies requires the presence of even illiberal religions.
Third, Mouffe is right that even liberal democratic states presuppose some unity that constitutes a dividing line between its citizens and citizens of other states. But it is a mistake to conceive this unity in highly intellectual terms (as is characteristic of conceptions of the good). All states require is the diversity of latent dispositions toward such unity when the states' survival and the protection of citizens is at stake. This is why, when confronted with (say) acts of (Islamic terroriss), Muslim police-officers and medical first-responders are capable of great acts of heroism and sacrifice. (See also this post about Charlie Hebdo.)
But what if a fundamentally illiberal conception of the good captures the state? This is not a hypothetical question. But I find it peculiar this is exclusively associated with the dangers of political islam. I have noted that even under President Obama, the Unites States government allows itself systematic surveillance of its own citizens and extra-juridical execution of those deemed to close to enemies.
The current panic over Huawei is not a panic of spying on citizens, but only the spying of a foreign power. And this is telling: there would be little reason to worry about the dangers of a takeover by political islam (which is electorally far-fetched) of our liberal democracies if our states were less capable of doing local evil.
The liberal response to this is to get more serious about dissolving and retrenching the oppressive bits of state power. The response to President Trump's behavior is also telling: this is nearly exclusively focused on his character, as opposed to the dangerous powers accumulated in his office. The point is that modern democracies and the normative theorists of their future should spend less time worrying about symbolic markers of religion and the conceptions of the good that folk may invoke for their behavior; and more time ensuring that few of us are subject to violence and subordination from each other, and the state.
*Political liberals, who tend to be more concerned about Christian opposition to abortion and gay-rights, tend to avoid singling out Islam in such a fashion. In TJ, Rawls presents his arguments in terms of the neutral 'religion' and 'theology.'
+I am not suggesting Rushdie's book ought to have been banned. Works of art and fiction may well be treated differently than mere direct speech acts.
++In this post I am ignoring the very interesting question how one should think about integration. My PhD student Lea Klarenbeek has taught me that most existing conceptions are fundamentally illiberal because they put the burdens of change on the weak and powerless.
You can't be serious: https://philpapers.org/rec/BLATPS-4
Posted by: Blattberg | 05/21/2019 at 04:12 AM