Solidarity must emerge from uncomfortable encounters, not shared liberal presuppositions

Evidence

1n1st practice of “solidarity” had any valence whatsoever, it could not be grounded in the ur.- of feminism, progressivism, liberalism, or Is.. lamism, but could only ensue within the uncertain, at times opaque, condi.. tions of intimate and uncomfortable encounters in all their eventuality. I say this not to resurrect a redemptive narrative of anthropological reckoning or universal humanism that claims the power to break through the thicket of prejudices and find a common human essence . To do so would be to reduce yet again all that remains irreconcilable into the trope of a shared humanity and its assumed teleological futurity. Rather what I mean to gesture at is a mode of encountering the Other which does not assume that in the process of cultur.. ally translating other lifeworlds one’s own certainty about how the world should proceed can remain stable. This attitude requires the virtue of humil.. ity: a sense that one does not always know wha one opposes and that a politi.. cal vision at times has to admit its own fi itude in order to even comprehend what it has sought to oppose. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 1311

Categorization

• XREF: Directly answers Spivak’s canonical question ‘Can the subaltern speak?’ and echoes her critique of the violence of translation; also inverts the liberal-feminist assumption that solidarity requires shared normative grounding. — connects to: Marginalized scholars must accept powerful groups border-crossing into their terrain despite real risks.; Cross-identity intellectual solidarity must rest on acknowledging differing privileged locations, not ignoring them.; Political solidarity, not natural affinity, must ground feminist sisterhood (+1 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that one’s political vision must admit its own finitude to even comprehend its opponent is a genuinely paradigm-shifting epistemic stance, not a routine argument.
• QUESTION: How does this ‘virtue of humility’ position relate to Ahmad’s materialist critique of postcolonial textualism? Worth mapping.
• SEED: The essay angle: what the virtue of epistemic humility demands of feminist critique, against the liberal certitude model.
• ADDENDUM: Connects to the sacrifice piece’s treatment of non-liberal practices: understanding a political vision may demand suspending one’s own normative certainty.