Passions and affects, not rationality, secure allegiance to democratic values
Evidence
By privileging rationality, both the deliberative and the aggregative perspectives leave aside a central dement which is the crucial role played by passions and affects in securing allegiance to democratic values. — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 433
By privileging rationality, both the deliberative and the aggregative perspectives leave aside a central dement which is the crucial role played by passions and affects in securing allegiance to democratic values. This cannot be ignored, and it entails envisaging the question of democratic citizenship in a very different way. The failure of current democratic theory to tackle the question of citizenship is the consequence of their operating with a conception of the subject which sees individuals as prior to society, bearers of natural rights, and either utility maximizing agents or rational subjects. In all cases they are abstracted from social and power relations. language. culture and the whole set of practices that make agency possible. — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 433
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the Rousseau/Schmitt lineage on passions and the affective binding of political community, and resonates with the earlier chapters on collectivities and identification. — connects to: Rethinking political ethics requires revising assumptions about human sociability — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 565; Emotionality aids rather than disrupts political reasoning and democratic life. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1660; Emotionality aids rather than undermines democratic deliberation (+9 more)
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 433
- recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
Broader Connections
- Emotionality aids rather than disrupts political reasoning and democratic life.
#corroborates(0.90) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1660 - Emotionality aids rather than undermines democratic deliberation
#corroborates(0.85) - Allegiance to democratic institutions rests on practices forming citizens, not rational justification
#corroborates(0.80) — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 432 - Democratic legitimacy depends on citizens’ internalized commitment that imposed systems cannot replace
#corroborates(0.75) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 74 - Feelings in politics can themselves be expressions of economic interests, not their opposite.
#expands(0.75) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 712 - For Aristotle, moral reflection and association-making generate human politicalness.
#exemplifies(0.70) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 173