Sunday, March 15, 2015
Bonnie Honig, "Difference, Dilemmas, and the Politics of Home"
Honig thinks about the challenges of difference to democratic practice and theory in terms of the concept of dilemmatic spaces. In this view, dilemmas are when the underlying differences that are always present in society reveal themselves, rather than being circumstantial challenges that occur. Honig conceptualizes differences as not just a descriptor in group identities, but the very integral core of an individual's identity. Therefore, the dilemmas that transpire due to differences can transcend government and politics and, Honig argues, serve as "a site from which to interrogate... the cultural constructs that support and stabilize conventional gender differences [and] value pluralism" (260). Ultimately, Honig claims decentered subjects working in social democracies is the ideal government format to deeply engage with and interrogate these differences. Honig claims social democracies are an ideal forum for these decentered subjects because they provide "the greatest potential to permit and even energize the sorts of mobilities and settlements these renegotiations [of difference] require" (273). In democratic practice, social democracies are a space that encourages challenging differences and transforming society for new generations. When decentered subjects occupy these democracies, they are successful in examining differences because they are both plural themselves and acutely aware of the major role that differences play in identities and dilemmas. They can, therefore, tackle these differences with a realistic worldview. This means they will utilize their in depth understanding of dilemmas and differences as integral to identity in order to "energize their social democracies" to renegotiate the meaning of justice.
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Your response if very based on "difference," and I think you explain the challenges Honig addresses really well, but I think the conceptual space of home is extremely important to discuss in terms of this. The idealistic "home" or space that denies difference is often what democratic theory relies on, and Honig draws away from this to accept difference as a mutual and inherent accept of humanity, instead of something that defines some unnatural "other." You claim that differences are "the very integral core of an individual's identity," and this statement fits her work on so many levels; differences challenge individual's identity within society and within themselves, such as when one struggles with a personal dilemma or even sometimes non-personal dilemmas. It's really cool how you discuss the issue of difference within broader context, claiming that it is "transcend[ent]", but it directly relates to politics the same. As you sum up the ideas of understanding that difference is natural and inescapable (and how one should be consciously aware of how difference affects their values and perspectives) one phrase really stood out to me: "dilemmas and differences [are] integral to identity," because this claims that our differences make us and acknowledges our relation to the world, but keeps the window open to new understandings of difference (that we are different ourselves) and to the instantaneous changing of identities.
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