Anders als denken

Is polarisation a fundamental threat to the open society? Are the divisions that run through societies and separate them into two (or more) more or less hostile groups problems to be solved? Or are they the corollaries of a vibrant democratic system that might legitimately be called an ‘open society’? These are the questions Christof Royer seeks to explore in this Essay.
His argument unfolds through a reinterpretation of Karl Popper’s conception of open society as a democratic idea, characterised by an appreciation of genuine human plurality and diversity that make ‘critical encounters with the other side’ possible (and desirable); this conception of open society also recognises the productive and progressive potential of social and political conflicts. For that reason, political polarisation cannot be regarded as a lethal threat to open societies. By contrast, ‘belief polarisation’, with its Manichean orientation and anti-political tendencies, is a much more serious threat. It follows that advocates of open society should avoid the temptation to solve the ‘problem’ of political polarisation – they should accept it as the price to be paid for the ‘imperfect ideal’ of open society. However, they should take steps to reduce belief polarisation through the active creation of spaces of critical encounters with the other side.

Nationism: In Defence of Open Societies is an intense, transdisciplinary work of philosophical anthropology, drawing widely on key insights from sociology, cultural, gender, literary and film studies, discourse and political theory, social psychology, ethology, and the latest developments in biology, neuroscience, evolutionary theory. Encompassing current events, popular culture, and the culture wars, it will enlighten, enrage (consider this your trigger warning) and enthuse not only academic readers but all those interested in the quandaries and dilemmas facing us today – and our possibilities for a better, more humane, democratic and free future. It will convert many of its readers from supporters (or even critics) of open society, to advocates for the proliferation of open societies.

To Live and to Die in History, engages with what we call the spectral returns of history and furthermore how these incessantly overwhelm our lived present by each time exceeding the possibility of a measured historical consciousness. By critically questioning Heidegger’s history of the truth of Being and pursuing Derrida’s deconstructive question, we attempt here to rethink a novel paradigm for a renewed philosophy of history oriented by a hyperbolical responsibility and an irreducible idea of justice for the singularity of both the past and the future dying and living in history.