Paper Example on Diversity, Democracy and Dissent

Introduction

Following the definition of democracy which is the rule of the people, by the people and for the people, it indicates that freedom is all about the people, representing them in every aspect. Every person's voice should be heard, served and included through democracy. However, this is not usually the case for everyone. There are recurrent complaints presented by different identity groups of exclusion in the form of not being appropriately represented in decision making bodies such as the task forces, media coverage issues, legislatures and commissions and also in meaningful discussions. From the reading of representation and social perspective, I learnt that every free communication that occurs in a democracy should have its people and their needs at its centre. Every person has the right to be represented, but this is not what is being practiced in today's democracy. Specific identity groups are being left out and are therefore forced to use other means to seek and gain access to the government of civil society (Oxhorn 2011, p.28). It is only fair that these groups' diverse interest and views get the justice of greater inclusion in processes of democracy and much emphasis put on disadvantaged groups that are minorities and subjects to structural inequalities.

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There is a rambling conflict between secular Christianity and Islam regarding issues relating to democracy, secularism, religious freedom, hate speech, critique and blasphemy. From this chapter, I learnt of the disagreements between Western secularism connected to life and judiciousness and a political Islam connected to death and hostility. The Danish cartoon debate questions the conservative laws of dispute, blasphemy, religion, secularism, insult and criticism. From this, I identified secular criticism as an aspect mostly associated with truth, freedom, religious objection and reason. In turn, these get associated with prejudice, deliberate obscurity, and subjective maxim. All of these got caused by a publication of twelve editorial cartoons in a Danish newspaper in the year 2005 and several papers in Europe in 2008 containing a satirized theme of the Prophet Muhammad. It raised debates and protests from people that felt this action was one of injustice towards their beliefs and values. There might never be harmony between religion and secularism, and people will always have different views regarding these two (Blackford 2012, p.14). The massive divide between writers, scholars and believers from both sides regarding religious beliefs and secular values should, however, never under any conditions, be permitted to undermine justice.

The arising focus in this reading subverts politics and emphasizes mostly on the differences rather than similarities in the society. Lines of sexuality, gender and nationality are the ones mobilizing the struggle for recognition of these identities. Social injustices subjected to people leads to rising concerns for recognition. The increase of individual self-identity, the undermining and the absorption of characters of the minority groups could lead to the cultural and traditional identity of the groups to vanish. The society needs to the right all the social ills present to eradicate both socioeconomic and cultural injustices. The remedies for doing this are recognition and redistribution. Through recognition and redistribution, these injustices will be done away with and group differentiation enhanced. The underlying basis of these two concepts, however, is intersectionality. It is a more complicated form that transforms the dynamics of all concerns over recognition and redistribution ( Krizsan, Skjeie and Squires 2012,p.54). As a form of upholding social justices, you and I need to use an intersectionality analysis to pursue redistribution, recognition and eradicate social injustices in the form of class inequality, socialism and communism that so much continue to dominate activist and academic debates today.

There is a definite difference between public and private, a division that carries a vast and long-term political and philosophical importance. It is not, however, the preserve of some philosophers but a well-established topic in the political discussions of every day. I think that the evaluative conceptions which are appropriate for use in the public sphere are not similar to those that can be suitably used in the private one. In the feminist engagement with the distinction between private and public, the family is regarded in the private sphere, and domestic gets interchangeably associated with the public (Krumm 2016, p.42). However, it brings to question, by categorizing family in the private realm, does this shield violence, abuse and domination from the legal rectification and political scrutiny? This question is what has been recurring in my mind; it made me re-establish the distinction between private and public as an internal division within the civil society in itself. Just because a family may be considered under the private domain and away from the political and public one, justice for those that get subjected to family violence should get served. This calls for a reconsideration of exactly what qualifies an issue to be treated as a public, political or private one.

Conclusion

Of the three modes of violence, symbolic, subjective and objective, the subjective violence is just the most visible one. This is the type of physical abuse enacted by agents we can identify, wicked individuals, over-enthusiastic crowds and disciplined oppressive people. Most of the people think that subjective is the only kind of violence, but they do not know that they are the real perpetrators of other types of abuse. This reading has shown me the importance of taking a step back and reassessing my role in the society and how it might be in some way contributing to the violence we are so determined to fight against each day. The purpose of this reading is to show us ways in which some groups of people are excluded from the system from equal access to some resources. If we continue to lack the formal freedom of choice, then we will never achieve real independence. We can however only gain this freedom through those moments of terror which act as a juncture between subjective and objective (Balibar and Goshgarian 2015, p.54). The capitalism is built on the violence of expropriation. In the attempt of knowingly or unknowingly depriving some people of their private properties for public use, the society practices enormous injustices, which victimizes its people.

References

Balibar, E., & Goshgarian, G. M. (2015). Violence and civility and other essays on political philosophy.

Blackford, R. (2012). Freedom of religion & the secular state. Malden, MA, Wiley-Blackwell.

Krizsan, A., Skjeie, H., & Squires, J. (2012). Institutionalizing intersectionality the changing nature of European equality regimes. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, Palgrave

Krumm, T. (2016). The politics opublic-privatete partnerships in Western Europe: comparative perspectives.

Macmillan. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=1016565.

Oxhorn, P. (2011). Sustaining civil society: economic change, democracy, and the social construction of citizenship in Latin America. University Park, Pa, Pennsylvania State University Press.