Mercedes Oraisón (Ed.), 2005
Barcelona, Octaedro‐Organización de los Estados Iberoamericanos
€12, 120 pp.
ISBN 84‐8063‐767‐6
This book brings together three analyses of the weakness of the public domain and civic ethics in Spain and Latin America in the context of the globalisation of communications and the market economy. The cultural and ethical background of these three essays is the assertion that ‘utilitarian individualism’ is an ideology that systematically undermines the foundations of political community, and introduces efficacy and subjective freedom as supreme values. The contributions of Oscar Mejía, Fernando Bárcena and Gonzalo Jover, and María Teresa Yurén try to recover, through the exploration of practical philosophy, but also by means of the analysis of Colombian, Spanish and Mexican reality in morality and politics, different models of practical rationality and a pedagogy of ethics that could contest the destructive effect of neo‐liberal ideology in the public sphere and in everyday life in Latin America and Spain.
Oscar Mejía’s essay—‘Cultura y valores democráticos en América Latina. Una reflexión desde la vida política’ [‘Culture and democratic values in Latin America. A critical analysis from the perspective of political life’]—is the most ambitious at the conceptual level, but also the least optimistic from a political point of view. He writes from a Colombian society deeply hurt by decades of violence and corruption of the elites. Mejía stakes his ground for a deliberative and democratic rationality—one that has its theoretical roots in contractualism and discursive ethics—which could enhance civil society so as to be able to battle against the excesses of government and subversion. This civic empowerment encounters enormous difficulties because of the many instances backed by political and economic power; state technocrats and representatives of international organisations do not pay any attention to the point of view and the expectations of the communities that are affected by the decisions they make. The colonisation of ‘daily life’ by the system (‘power’ and ‘money’ in Habermas’s perspective) has violent effects on people.
Mejía considers that the empowerment of civil society requires the appropriation of human rights discourse, centred in freedom and individual dignity. This discourse opposes both orthodox Marxism and the now dominant ideology of neo‐liberalism. John Rawls’ book, A theory of justice, becomes the inspiration for the language of rights that Mejía offers. But the main problem of his proposal is the lack of mediation between the world of high theory—the normative idea of consensual democracy and the conception of rights that lies beneath it—and the world of social practice, a world diminished by violence and exacerbation of instrumental rationality. The author never describes the social and political mechanisms that might empower public opinion and incorporate rights discourse at institutional level. It seems that Mejía’s strongest thesis remains prescriptive and does not find a place to take root and grow.
The contribution of Fernando Bárcena and Gonzalo Jover—‘La ciudadanía imposible. Pensar el sujeto cívico desde una pedagogía de la mirada’ [‘Impossible citizenship. Teaching to see and think about citizens in a different way’] —follows a different path. The promotion of citizenship is presented from the experience of a Spain modernised by European integration, a country that has experienced vertiginous economic growth and that today is particularly sensitive to cultural secularisation and migration. Spanish youth—according to these authors’ judgement—live a ‘postmodern twist’ that undermines trust in political action and democratic institutions in favour of a personal search for meaning.
Bárcena and Jover argue that it is necessary ‘decir la civilidad de otro modo’ [‘to talk about civility in another way’] (p. 72). This new expression of civic ethics would come from the experience of interaction with those who suffer injustice and exclusion. The task is teaching to see—to learn to look with different eyes—in order to promote empathy with and commitment to the other so as to incorporate him/her into our moral and political loyalties. This pedagogy of human interaction tries to break the spiral of isolation and indifference that comes with prosperous modern societies. This section of the book postulates the development of a ‘narrative imagination’, understood as ‘an essential device to comprehend the intentions, desires and beliefs of others’ (p. 79), so as to cultivate solidarity and social commitment. This ethic of openness and recognition makes this proposal close to the perspective about ethics and its relation to the education of the emotions developed by Martha Nussbaum and Richard Rorty.
The final section, by María Teresa Yurén—‘Educación para la eticidad y la ciudadanía en tiempos de globalización. Una mirada desde México’ [‘Education for ethical life and citizenship in times of globalisation. A view from México’]—examines the ‘withdrawal of the politic’ projecting Hegel’s categories of ethical life onto Mexican reality. Beyond some questionable references to Hegel’s philosophy, the author refers to ethics in terms of ‘the ethic of communitarian life’, which is being pushed aside by the modernisation processes in culture and economics. The author postulates a ‘dignifying ethical life’, a model of moral community that reconciles the exigencies of belonging with the demands of a universal idea of justice. Regaining civic praxis would allow the updating of this model. Nevertheless, public autonomy is blocked by a self‐referential conception that privatises ethics and fractures the agora. Public affairs have been ‘taken away from real life’ (pp. 96–97).
According to Yurén, the goal of education should be to promote criticisms of these modes of thinking and acting. Only by dismantling the individualistic common sense that has been installed in our societies would it be possible to open up a space for civic commitment. Teachers’ work in their classrooms must enhance social interaction, questioning and debate in such a way that students become able to recognise that community life needs self‐reflection. To belong to an ‘us’ implies the acknowledgement of identity narratives that are not contradictory to rational analysis. In this way young people will be educated as future citizens and as autonomous beings that not only appreciate consensus but also the expression of rational disagreement.
The three essays that comprise this book emphasise the growth of political decomposition in societies where policies of resource distribution and social recognition are still incipient. In them, the market has become a privileged place for finding and achieving success and chasing liberty. However, it is a social scenario that is not accessible to everyone. The state’s policies have virtually been put on only in the service of economic development. The empowerment of citizenship through political action will decisively contribute to the struggle against these open (and not so open) forms of exclusion. Nevertheless, this will not be possible if citizens do not consider themselves to be part of a common plan that vindicates rights and assumes a civic struggle against injustice.
© 2009, Gonzalo Gamio Gehri