Kaamya sharma biography of abraham lincoln

Democracy and Its Others

INTRODUCTION Every idea worth its name creates differences; normative ideas create deviations. Th... more INTRODUCTION Every idea worth its name creates differences; normative ideas create deviations. The very being of an idea draws its sustenance from dissent; the normative idea can exist only by removing that dissent. This removal is possible only by turning an idea into a norm, and dissent into an ideological crime. Elimination of alternatives and ascribing evil to them is crucial for the norm to be universal, yet no totalizing norm can stop creating its others. Thus universality and normativity are about unending power; the power to define and the power to silence. Universality of an otherwise relative concept cannot be separated from violence and derecognition of alternatives, and is predicated on this sustained mission of silencing. Universality then, however progressive it may appear, is fascism; it is fascism of a subtle ki