Decency and Difference: Humanity and the Global Challenge of Identity Politics [Hardback]

"Decency remains one of the most prevalent yet least understood terms in today's political discourse. In evoking respect, kindness, courage, integrity, reason, and tolerance, it has long expressed an unquestioned duty and belief in promoting and protecting the dignity of all persons. Today this unquestioned belief is in crisis. Tribalism and identity politics have both hindered and threatened its moral stability and efficacy. Still, many continue to undertheorize its political character by isolating it from the effects of identity politics. Decency and Difference argues that decency is a primary source of the political tension that has long shaped the struggles for power, identity, and justice in the global arena. It distinguishes among basic, conservative, and liberal strands of decency to critically examine the many conflicting and competing applications of decency in global politics. Together these different stands reflect a long and uneven evolution from the British and American Empire to a global network of justice. By engaging the contradictions of the progressive and retrogressive qualities of decency and the role played by emotion and affect in driving these contradictions, the book exposes the propriety gaps of decency and the disparate ways that it is practiced in global politics. The book thus addresses the global challenge of reconciling different political proprieties and configuring a diverse political ethic of decency"--

The author explores the idea of decency in politics, arguing that it is a primary source of political tension impacting the struggle for power, identity, and justice in the global arena. He contends that decency plays a role in identity politics and looks at its evolution from the national to global level and the conflicts between its universal and specific applications. He examines the competing and contradictory elements of basic, conservative, and liberal decency, looking at how it has become connected to liberal norms, individual rights, and equal dignity; whether it can support a pluralist liberal system capable of balancing the universal constraints on killing or harming a person's dignity against the recognition of different identity claims; the role of emotions in countering or furthering human decency; and the relationship between decency and difference. He describes how the secular politics of decency emerged in the 18th century and how their liberal foundation involved new ways of thinking about the relationship between justice and decency and freedom and religion and how it introduced the idea of basic decency at the national level; the evolving notion of liberal decency at the international level, including its conceptual framework and how its extended application helped define the parameters of global moral propriety; and the potential of decency in terms of the politics of affect. He provides case studies of outcomes of the struggle for Islamic identity in Egypt, the issue of reconciling global and local justice, and how the European Union's transnational moral propriety has resolved the oppression of the Roma people, and ends with discussion of the importance of confronting the political reality of decency, particularly in the context of Trumpism. Annotation ©2021 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)