Abstract

This paper introduces (or reiterates) a paradox: if humanist (rational and egalitarian) principles of social organization are attendant upon the evolution of an educated, leisured class (be it feudal or bourgeois), how can these norms be applied from the “bottom up”? It is the paradox of democratic liberalism, the spectre behind the ideal of “participatory parity” which both entails and presupposes equality of capability, and hence of socioeconomic status. By way of a very brief genealogy of enlightenment values, against contemporary public discourse, this article sets the question into stark relief, viz.: if the principles of equality and rational exchange do not correspond to any common substratum of humanity, any inalienable aspect of persons or social organization per se, but comprise rather a ruling class etiquette, for and among the members of this class, therefore reflecting a developmental achievement, then can these principles be taken out of their context and reapplied, so to speak, where they never belonged and from which they evolved? Are the principles of rational discourse the same as the principles of material (re)production? Could they ever be? Or do they necessarily convey the most insidious of ruling class ideologies? Contemporary thought on (post)colonization and critical theory of capitalism (“bourgeois” critique, arguably) beg this question and invite this paradox.