20 October, 2012

Breaking the Silence | The Caravan - A Journal of Politics and Culture

Breaking the Silence | The Caravan - A Journal of Politics and Culture: Equality is forged in the crucible of politics; it would be presumptuous to prescribe solutions. But the politics of equality will have to cut more insistently through the culture of avoidance; this is easier said than done, because this culture has become deeply embedded in everyday sites and practices. Economically, growth is not everything; in many ways, it will pose new and serious challenges. But the absence of growth will have catastrophic consequences for any project of equality, because new opportunities cannot be created without it. Ultimately, a new politics of equality will require the imagination of a new idiom to replace those that have been exhausted—a new way to think about the reasons for equality without reference to its utility towards some other end. It will have to be based on reminding us of the good of equality, and the possibilities it affords for a new and better political community.