Rawls’s well-ordered society eliminates politics and requires coercion of dissenters
Evidence
The way he envisages the nature of the overlapping consensus dearly indicates that. for Rawls. a well-ordered society is a society from which politics has been eliminated. A conception of justice is mutually recognized by reasonable and rational citizens who act according to its injunctions. … If an unreasonable or irrational person happens to disagree with that state of affairs and intends to disrupt that nice consensus, she or he must be forced, through coercion, to submit to the principles of justice. Such a coercion, however, has nothing to do with oppression, since it is justified by the exercise of reason. — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 129
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: Mouffe shows the would-be reconciling, coercion-free ideal quietly reintroduces coercion — labelled non-oppressive by definition. Worth sitting with.
- XREF: connects to: Rawls’s well-ordered society erases the adversary from democratic politics. — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 69; Liberal World Government would eliminate authentic politics among peoples; Coercive State power can progressively wither into regulated civil society (+8 more)
Broader Connections
- Liberal World Government would eliminate authentic politics among peoples
#exemplifies(0.85) - The moral consensus itself can silence those excluded from the start
#expands(0.82) — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 351 - Coercive State power can progressively wither into regulated civil society
#qualifies(0.80) - Ideological control persists even in a classless society
#qualifies(0.75) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 639 - A system tolerates and rewards dissent that stays within its boundaries
#qualifies(0.72) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 340 - Ordinary people’s refusal can topple even entrenched systems of power
#contradicts(0.70) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1661