Every consensus is a provisional hegemonic stabilization entailing exclusion.
Evidence
It is for that reason that the ideal of a pluralist democracy cannot be to reach a rational consensus in the public sphere. Such a consensus cannot exist. We have to accept that every consensus exists as a temporary result of a provisional hegemony, as a stabilization of power, and that it always entails some form of exclusion. The ideas that power could be dissolved through a rational debate and that legitimacy could be based on pure rationality are illusions which can endanger democratic institutions. — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 467
Categorization
- recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
- XREF: connects to: Democratic consensus is always the crystallization of hegemonic power relations, never neutral agreement — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 223; Every consensus stabilizes irreducible chaos, and permanent stability would end politics — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 586; Free economic participation generates a permanent political consensus among its agents. — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 550 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Consensus is shaped and structured by unequal power rather than freely formed
#corroborates(0.90) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 919 - Every consensus stabilizes irreducible chaos, and permanent stability would end politics
#corroborates(0.85) — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 586 - The moral consensus itself can silence those excluded from the start
#expands(0.85) — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 351 - Free economic participation generates a permanent political consensus among its agents.
#contradicts(0.80) — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 550