Toward a Global Thin Community by Mark Olssen

Author:Mark Olssen [Olssen, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781317250326
Google: 9AXvCgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-11-17T05:04:42+00:00

In my conception the ‘overlapping consensus’ is the outcome of shared material constraints around life and continuance rather than a single conception of rationality. Although in different cultures these norms will be expressed in different ways and permit infinite variations, certain common material forces will be expressed, although differently modulated at the cultural level in different societies.

Such a dual ontology as represented in Figure 7.1 also aids in the quest that Sen (2002a) sets himself in finding a third way beyond ‘grand universalism’ and ‘national particularism’, which he sees as suggested by the Rawlsian model. For Sen, working from Rawls, ‘grand universalism’ entails the core specificities from the original position derived from the “hypothetical exercise in the selection of rules and principles, and without the distinctions of nationality and other clarifications” (39). ‘National particularism’, on the other hand, represents the specifics internal to nations. Neither, he says, can give us an adequate understanding of how common and specific elements cohere together or of the demands of global justice. There is a need, he says, for a third conception with an adequate recognition of the plurality of relations involved across the globe, outside of nations. Hence, he says:

We need a different conception of global justice that is neither as ambitious and uninstitutionalized as the grand universalism of one comprehensive “original position” encompassing the whole world ... nor as separatist and restrictive as national particularism (even when supplemented by international relations). The starting point of an alternative approach, drawing on plural affiliations, can be the recognition of the fact that we all have multiple identities, and that each of these identities can yield concerns and demands that can significantly supplement, or seriously compete with, other concerns and demands arising from other identities. (Sen, 2002a: 42)

These factors which cut ‘across borders’ must be represented by global institutions and a multiplicity of agencies, he says. It is these types of agencies that can best represent the general life forces that are common to all societies and that are represented by those elements listed at the base of Figure 7.1. They are what in shorthand I call life forces. It is the specific, national, or contextual community factors to do with culture and language that are listed above the bar in Figure 7.1. The fact that values can be expressed or realized in different ways in different cultures gives rise to the need for ‘weighing’, or exercising what Kant called ‘judgement’, as to the contribution of a particular social practice to enabling life’s continuance. It is possible, however, although admittedly sometimes difficult, to assess all societies as to how practices contribute to fostering life, or impeding it. Issues such as genocide or violence are easily identified, and institutions such as the Nuremberg Charter attest to the fact that life forces can be recognized in all cultures, no matter how varied, and are increasingly insisted upon by peoples everywhere. We can carry out a similar process of reasoning in relation to other factors—both more complex and

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