Honig's Concept of Difference in Democratic Practice (Post #7)

Using Bernard Williams’s analysis and examples of ordinary and radial dilemma and pluralism, Honig takes a critical step further in explaining the concept of home and its application when facing difference in democratic practice. Honig argues that people have an idealistic concept of home, “a place free of power, conflict, and place—an identity, a form of life, a group vision—unmarked or unriven by difference and untouched by the power brought to bear upon it by the identities that strive to ground themselves in its place” (258). Often compared to a mother’s womb, home is a conceptual place where our internal beliefs and integrity take precedent. As a result, we forever yearn home and have an internal instinct to preserve it. However, Honig recognizes this concept of home brings a plethora of issues. First, Honig argues (citing Bernice Reagon’s “Coalition Politics”) that home, a place with no conflict or difference, does not mirror the real world, a place filled with “Others” (people differing from us ideologically, racially, emotionally, and psychologically). Rather, it leaves certain people confined to a place a privilege, while “Others” are repelled and dismissed. Additionally, Honig recognizes that this desire to maintain the home and keep it away from conflict leaves people with two options—withdrawal (“to a supposedly safe home that is elsewhere, away from the all this tumult”) or conquer (“of that tumultuous disorder in order to build a supposedly safe home here.”) (270). For this reason, Honig describes home as “dangerous” and “engag[ing] zealotry” (Ibid). Consequently, she, in addition to feminist theorists Teresa de Lauretis and Bernice Reagon, believe that in order to establish democratic empowerment the concept of home must be challenged and interrogated. They argue this is the only way difference and dilemmas bring social democratic struggle.