Aus einem fernen Land. Kommentar zu Charles Taylor
From a faraway Country. Comment on Charles Taylor

Summary/Abstract: Charles Taylor's contribution forces us to reflect on fundamental questions that are essential for the understanding and, in particular, the practice of democracy. Convincing to me is the main thesis of the article, which is brief: We can only speak of a living democracy if it can not be confined to the role of the state as a means of satisfying the individual interests of as many members of a particular community as possible nor in the fusion of these interests in a supposed general interest, that is, in their negation in the name of a common will. In other words, a democracy is not just about allowing citizens to compete with each other and their mutual interests freely, but also about having a common good in their state as such, perceiving themselves as citizens and being proud of belonging to the community. Concerned about the course of political debates in Poland, I have repeatedly tried to say something similar myself in recent years. The discussions usually crystallized around the following alternative: either there is a ruthless struggle of the political parties and other individual interests, or a bourgeois consensus, which leaves the social disputes in an open balance but is in itself as prerequisite for the joint work on the common good. I think that this is a wrong alternative, and I think that no democratic society should be allowed to make such a choice.

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