Tradition and Democratic Politics
Because of the importance it accords to the particular, to the existence of different forms of rationality, and to the role of tradition, the path of radical democracy paradoxically runs across some of the main currents of conservative thinking. One of the chief emphases of conservative thought does indeed lie in its critique of the Enlightenment's rationalism and universalism, a critique it shares with postmodernist thought; this proximity might explain why certain postmodernists have been branded as conservative by Habermas. In fact, the affinitiescan be found not on the level of the political but in the fact that, unlike liberalism and Marxism, both of which are doctrines of reconciliation and mastery, conservative philosophy is predicated upon human finitude, imperfection and limits. This does not lead unavoidably to a defence of the status quo and to an antidemocratic vision, for it lends itself to various kinds of articulation.
The notion of tradition, for example, has to be distinguished from that of traditionalism. Tradition allows us to think our own insertion into historicity, the fact that we are constructed as subjects through a series of already existing discourses, and that it is through this tradition which forms us that the world is given to us and all political action made possible. A conception of politics like that of Michael Oakeshott, who attributes a central role to the existing 'traditions of behavior' and who sees political action as 'the pursuit of an intimation', is very useful and productive for the formulation of radical democracy. Indeed, for Oakeshott, 'Politics is thfe. activity of attending to the general arrangements of a collection of people who, in respect of their common recognition of a manner of attending to its arrangements, compose a single community. ... This activity, then, springs neither from instant desires, nor from general principles, but from the existing traditions of behavior themselves. And the form it takes, because it can take no other, is the amendment of existing arrangements by exploring and pursuing what is intimated in them. If one considers the liberal democratic tradition to be the main tradition of behaviour in our societies, one can understand the extension of the democratic revolution and development of struggles for equality and liberty in every area of social life as being the pursuit of these 'intimations' present in liberal democratic discourse. Oakeshott provides us with a good example, while unaware of the radical potential of his arguments. Discussing the legal status of women, he declares that 'the arrangements which constitute a society capable of political activity, whether these are customs or institutions or laws or diplomatic decisions, are at once coherent and incoherent; they compose a pattern and at the same time they intimate a sympathy for What does not fully appear. Political activity is the exploration of that sympathy; and consequently, relevant political reasoning will be convincing exposure of a sympathy, present but not yet followed up, and the convincing demonstration that now is the appropriate moment for recognizing it.' He. concludes that it is in this way that one is capable of recognizing the legal equality of women. It is immediately apparent how useful reasoning of this kind can be as a justification of the extension of democratic principles.
This importance afforded to tradition is also one of the principal themes of Gadamei^s philosophical hermeneutics, which offers us a number of important ways of thinking about the construction of the political subject. Following Heidegger, Gadamer asserts the existence of a fundamental unity between thought, language and the world. It is through language that the'horizon of our present is constituted; this, language bears the mark of the past; it is the life of the past in the present and thus constitutes the movement of tradition. The error of the Enlightenment, according to Gadamer, was to discredit 'prejudices' and to propose an ideal of understanding which requires that one transcend one's present and free oneself from one's insertion irito history. But it is precisely these prejudices that define our hermeneutical situation and constitute our condition of understanding and openness to the world. Gadamer also rejects the opposition drawn up by the Enlightenment between tradition and reason, because for him 'tradition is constantly an element of freedom and of history itself. Even the most genuine and solid tradition does not persist by nature because of the inertia of what once existed. It needs to be affirmed, embraced, cultivated. It is, essentially, preservation such as is active in all historical change. But preservation is an act of reason, though an unconspicuous one. For this reason, only what is,new, or what is planned, appears as the result of reason. But this is an illusion. Even where life changes violently, as in ages of revolution, far more. of the old is preserved in the supposed transformation of everything than anyone knows, and combines with the new to create a new value.
This conception of tradition found in Gadamer can be made more specific and complex if reformulated in terms of Wittgenstein's 'language games'. Seen in this light, tradition becomes the set of language games that make up a given community. Since for Wittgenstein language games are an indissoluble union between linguistic rules, objective situations and forms of life, tradition is the set of discourses fend practices that form us as Subjects. Thus we are able to think of politics as the "pursuit *of intimations, which in a Wittgensteinian' perspective can be understood as the creation of new usages for the key terms of a given tradition, and . of their use in new language games that make new forms of life possible.
To be able to think about the politics of radical democracy through the notion of tradition, it is important to emphasize the composite, heterogeneous, open, and ultimately indeterminate character of the democratic tradition. Several possible strategies are always available, not only in the sense of the different interpretations one can make of the same element, but also because of the way in which some parts or aspects of tradition can be played against others. This is what Gramsci, perhaps the only Marxist to have understood the role of tradition, saw as a process of disarticulation and rearticulation of elements characteristic of hegemonic practices.
Recent attempts by neoliberals and neoconservatives to redefine concepts such as liberty and equality, and to disarticulate the idea of liberty from that of democracy, demonstrate how within the liberal democratic tradition different strategies can be pursued, making available different kinds of intimations. Confronted by this offensive on the part of those who want to put an end to the articulation that was established in the nineteenth century between liberalism and dgjnocracy and who want to redefine liberty as nothing more than an absence of coercion, the project of radical democracy must try to defend democracy and to expand its sphere of applicability to new social relations. It aims to create another kind of articulation between elements of the liberal democratic tradition, no longer viewing rights in an individualist framework but rather conceiving of 'democratic rights'. This will create a new hegemony, which will be the outcome of the articulation of the greatest possible number of democratic struggles.
What we need is a hegemony of democratic values, and this requires a multiplication of democratic practices, institutionalizing them into ever more diverse social relations, so that a multiplicity of subject positions can be formed through a democratic matrix. It is in this way - and not by trying to provide it with a rational foundation - that we will be able not only to defend democracy but also to deepen it. Such a hegemony will never be complete, and anyway, it is not desirable for a society to be ruled by a single democratic logic. Relations of authority and power cannot completely disappear, and it is important to abandon the myth of a transparent society, reconciled with itself, for that kind of fantasy leads to totalitarianism. A project of radical and plural democracy/ on the contrary, requires the existence of multiplicity, of plurality and of conflict, and sees in them the raison d'Stre of politics.