Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho

nor ahistorical meaning of justice. It is a sign of the kind of task Politics
involves, relating to equal participation of citizens in the infinitive
process of communitarian self-construction.
4. Conclusions
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DEMOCRACY TODAY
From this, we can focus the contemporary political problem we proposed
at the beginning - the non explicit restriction of political horizon,
by the exclusion of certain subjects as questions to decide, from its
presentation as natural or mathematical truths. As examples, we could
remind some questions relative to economical national organization,
and its integration in global economical order, “naturally” and “obviously”
founded in competition and private property. The naturalization
of these questions decreases the space of Policits. That means, it
decreases the power of self-determination of human beings as equals.
This is not a political strategy to obtain success for certain interests;
this is a contra-political strategy, and in this sense it is against the
philosophical profile of our civilization (as a civilization where people
keep the right to participating in the struggle for the world).
Homogeneity, another trait of contemporary political experience,
is linked to this. In spite of the always recited description of present
times as a spectacle of diversity and hospitality, we progressively show
standardized opinions and ways of life - for example: we become less
and less interested in Politics. We seem to think mostly the same, wishing
and fearing the same, living in progressively identical towns.
These ideologies strangle political horizon. By excluding deliberation
about alleged natural questions, they deny to people the power
of self-determination.
They contradict human beings as equals, although they make
people more and more similar, from the constriction of the field of selfdetermination.
This has not been made through sound and coactive
strategies, but the results are the same or even worse.
These strategies can be said contra-political, attempting against
human equality in a very deep sense - the sense that gives to Politics its
particular meaning, and that made it so quickly develop to democracy, the
regime to which Athens was historically led by Philosophy culture.