Difference simultaneously constitutes and limits any unity or totality

Evidence

Thanks to the insights of post-structuralism the project of radical and plural democracy is able to acknowledge that difference is the condition of the possibility of constituting unity and totality at the same time that it provides their essential limits. In such a view, plurality cannot be: eliminated; it bc:comes irreducible. We have therefore to abandon the very idea of a complete reabsorption of alterity into oneness and harmony. It is an alterity that cannot be: domesticated, but as Rodolphe Gasch~ indicates: ‘forever undermines, but also makes possible, the dream of autonomy achieved through a re8exive coiling upon sdf, since it names the precondition of such a desired state, a precondition that represents the limit of such a possibility’. — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 145

Categorization

• QUESTION: Directly relevant to the reader’s test: if alterity cannot be domesticated, can the enemy/adversary be converted into a merely agonistic relation, or does some residue of antagonism remain that no ‘we’ can absorb?
• XREF: Echoes Derridean différance and the Derrida quote Mouffe later discusses on democracy as ‘to come’ - never fully present, always deferred. — connects to: Unity across difference requires integrating, not absorbing, diverse positions — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice:…, 614; Lack presupposes a totality that the existing and the lacking jointly compose; Producing sameness requires creating and externalizing difference — David Theo Goldberg, The Racial State, 20 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Totalizing approaches a boundary it can never actually cross #corroborates (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 775
• Genuine reason unites a priori and a posteriori, identity and difference #corroborates (0.79) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1186
• Unity across difference requires integrating, not absorbing, diverse positions #exemplifies (0.78) — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 614
• Creolized totality is ordered yet free of hierarchy and essence #complicates (0.76) — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 487
• Lack presupposes a totality that the existing and the lacking jointly compose #corroborates (0.75)
• Différance functions as an unknowable absolute akin to Schelling’s #expands (0.75) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 312
• Distinction suppresses similarities just as adequation suppresses differences #expands (0.74) — Mary Bucholtz and Kira Hall, Identity and Interaction, 80
• The singular is self-identical determinateness posited as whole, or self-identical negativity #expands (0.74) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1124
• Producing sameness requires creating and externalizing difference #qualifies (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, The Racial State, 20
• The natural unity of individual and genus must be sublated into opposition #exemplifies (0.72) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 298
• Abstracted elements must never fully separate from what they were abstracted from #qualifies (0.71) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 681
• Identity is constructed jointly by several indexical levels rather than one #expands (0.71) — Mary Bucholtz and Kira Hall, Identity and Interaction, 70