The thinning and deformation of ethical and political concepts in the era of globalization

Abstract

In contemporary literature, it is acknowledged as a fact that while we currently find ourselves facing the ‘Era of Globalization’, still very little work has been done to analyze this concept, which rather appears as a deus ex machina; as a product of the contemporary crisis, lacking political history and semantic genealogy, wanting nevertheless to become an explanatory wildcard for all present events, both in a positive and negative sense. The initial thesis of this article is that the current concept of globalization is an empty one that has been stripped of its historical content. This emptying is part of the ‘postmodern’ processes of thinning and deformation afflicting ethical-political concepts (freedom, equality, democracy) by depriving them of their ‘modern’ content without endowing any other. Taking this into account, I defend the consequent thesis that the suppression of these concepts’ semantic history implies in turn the eradication of the ethical commitment that they entailed, whose inheritance by contrast should not be renounced. I conclude that there is the need for a socio-political pedagogy that contributes to transmitting ‘responsibility for the concepts’ that are the true shapers of collective identities. Without this responsibility, our ability to adopt any other type of historical, ethical or political responsibility would be impeded. With this proposal, I want to recover in its true ‘universal’—not ‘global’—sense the Leibnizian motto ‘Theoria cum praxi’ taken up by the Enlightenment, in which a renewed philosophy of history acts as a bridge between history (memory) and politics (action), endowing both with ethical content.