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​Think Left​​


Chantal Mouffe stresses that a dominant, contemporary liberal thought advocates politics of a global​ consensus that had “replaced” allegedly conservative​​​ ​distinctions between ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​the political left and right. These pol​itical frontiers became​ blurred and undefined in the ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​contemporary world: liberal understandings of pluralism are based on the idea of the ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​possibility of a world in which many different perspectives, viewpoints and values can exist ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​in harmony, without conflicts. Based on its basic premises – rationalism and individualism – ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​the liberal thought advocates​ a possibility of a universal consensus that is based on the ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​“universal reason”; also, it negates all antagonisms among individuals – rational beings. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Given that an individual has become the only point of reference, the liberal thoughts exclude ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​deliberations of collective, political identifications. Processes of individualization “destroy” ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​all forms of collective identifications, therefore preventing any possibility for emergence of ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​collective consciousness. These theorizations advocate the idea of a post-political global ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​society, in which, after the destruction of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the bipolar ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​world, all antagonisms are overcome. In the “world” that has entered a new era – the era of ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​“second modernity” – individuals are“liberated” from all collective ties now perceived as ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​obsolete in developed Western societies. However, it is a paradox, when political frontiers ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​became blurred (and a distinction between the left and the right undefined), one witnesses the​​​​​​​​​​​ ​​​​​growth of other forms of collective identifications: nationalist, ethnic, religious.​​

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