Liberal universalism requires violence against the outside it defines as unredeemed darkness.
Evidence
The image Canovan employs to present and defend liberalism is striking: “making a garden in a jungle that is continually encroaching” and a “world [that] is a dark place, which needs redemption by the light of a myth.” This image is not only an invitation to adopt a mythic approach; it is already part of the myth. It fixes on (explains and justifies) the violence lying at the heart of a political doctrine that has disavowed violence on principle. … The liberal violence to which I refer (as opposed to the violence of illiberal regimes) is translucent. It is the violence of universalizing reason itself. For to make an enlightened space, the liberal must continually attack the darkness of the outside world that threatens to overwhelm that space. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 293
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
- XREF: Connects to my interests in sacrifice and the dark underside of ostensible civility — the garden-in-jungle myth as a stabilizing narrative resembles how sacrificial ideologies rationalize founding violence.
- SEED: Angles for an essay: ‘The violence of universalizing reason’ as a lens on modern civilizational discourse and colonial/civilizing missions.