The Revolutionary’s Dilemma: The Epistemology of Political Polarization and Solidarity Beyond Democracy

Robert Talisse theorizes a “Democrat’s Dilemma,” which argues that liberal democratic citizenship involves a normative and phenomenological conflict between the norms of democratic equality and pursuing justice. If citizens succumb to the dilemma and disengage with their opposition’s reasoning, polarization dynamics undermine their capacities to develop justified beliefs and maintain alliances. Extending this analysis, even if one is subject to an authoritarian system, an equivalent dilemma exists for a revolutionary between a norm of solidarity and the pursuit of revolutionary justice. The daunting political-epistemic burdens of authoritarian political conditions require a separate account of political polarization and its remedies.

Duke Scholars

Author Emerson Robert Bodde DKU Faculty