I am pleased to have come across Robert Talisse, American philosopher and political theorist, now that he has told us about his change of mind around democracy. Unfortunately, I doubt the practicality of his proposals.
Talisse is a friendly critic of the theme, common amongst the intellectual left, of participation and active citizenship. By his definition, democracy is 'self-government among equals'. But he has decided that in the conditions of hyper-polarisation apparent around the world today, the left prescription is not good enough - something he calls 'civic solitude' is needed as well.
Conventional thinking about civic activity, public spaces, and the like would seem to make 'civic solitude' a contradiction in terms. But what Talisse has in mind is for political systems - states, councils, cities, etc., - to allocate some spaces for people to step back from arguments and conflicts, so as to reflect on how they themselves see the issues at hand. He hopes that would enable us to do democracy better than we do now. Similarly, Talisse thinks that if people can be accustomed to taking part in activities together, for instance in the family or with work colleagues, where the point of the activity has nothing to do with politics, polarisation and extremism will be diluted. In both ways, Talisse aims to combat the tendency of those who mix only with like-minded people to become more extreme.
Despite my respect for Talisse's intentions, I am dubious about his ideas working in practice. Talisse himself admits it would be difficult to avoid publicly allocated spaces finishing up with political identities, even when they were supposed to be for solitary thinking. On the face of things, people finding things to do together without politics should be much easier. Yet if we remember that politics - including as arguments and conflicts - frequently overlaps with morality (or ethics), then the picture darkens. It is not enough that members of a group share common moral standards amongst themselves; they must also share them with other groups for democratic conditions to be met. Having a moral (claim) component in political positions makes it all the harder to avoid opponents being treated with contempt, or worse. For instance, groups campaigning about abortion, nuclear defence, migration, or taxation and economic inequality, often have strong moral commitments, but almost certainly will not be sharing these with those who disagree on their political stand.
I would be only too pleased if Talisse can find satisfactory answers to these problems, but the challenge for him is formidable indeed.