Solidarity and Its Critique

• In Event: Feminist Revolution, Resistance, and the Idea of Solidarity

Abstract

This paper elaborates an account of the relation between political polarization and social solidarity. The age of mis- and disinformation has triggered increased political polarization and, paradoxically perhaps, calls for solidarity. In fact, most, if not all, collective movements appeal to solidarity—from #MeToo, Occupy, Black Lives Matter, and historical anti-colonial movements, to the New Right and neo-fascist groups. Political polarization has led to calls to social solidarity from vastly diverging groups, with often opposed political beliefs and information channels.

But what does this appeal to solidarity really mean in an age of mis- and disinformation? How can we better understand, and critically evaluate, different appeals to solidarity in polarized societies? This paper clears the conceptual ground: For some groups, I argue, solidarity stems from a positive condition, for others it is a negative concern. A positive condition relates to a shared identity (something you are), while a negative concern relates to concerted action against oppression (something you do). The key distinction I propose is between solidarity based on a shared identity (the condition is positive: a group shares a specific identity, and acts in solidarity to achieve what is considered the common interest of this identity) and solidarity based in action against a shared oppression, adversity, or injustice (the concern is negative: a group acts in solidarity with a shared commitment to overcome a specific condition, and can, but need not, dialectically develop a group identity). While this is an ideal-typical distinction—negative and positive solidarity, though conceptually distinct phenomena, often appear together—it can help us map the spectrum of political polarization.

I ground this distinction in theoretical reconstruction of two concepts of solidarity commonly not referred to in the contemporary debate on solidarity: those of Isaiah Berlin (2002) and Hannah Arendt (1963). Just like Berlin’s two concepts of liberty grasped a central phenomenon of his time, the distinction between two concepts of solidarity elaborated in this paper might help us to better understand different appeals to solidarity today.

First, I take issue with the seemingly moral equivalence of what I posture are different concepts of solidarity and ground the distinction between positive and negative solidarity in the contemporary literature. Second, I illustrate the positive concept by reconstructing and interpreting Isaiah Berlin’s account of solidarity as a desire for belonging to a community, distinct from his two concepts of liberty. Third, I reconstruct a negative concept of solidarity from Arendt’s account. My account of negative solidarity is post-foundational in that it does not ground solidarity in a feeling, a shared condition, or a pre-political group identity, but rather conceptualizes it as concerted action towards the shared goal to overcome injustice. Its relation to power helps explain why diverse collective movements appeal to it: by virtue of its collective action, mutual promise, and shared concern, it can bring about social change. I develop this interpretation by addressing key critiques of this account—the exclusion of social and economic conditions, the non-instrumental value of political action, and the lack of collective identity.

I argue that the concept I reconstruct and develop out of Arendt’s political thought can address these critiques and is especially useful for advancing a concept of solidarity in respect to oppression, adversity, and injustice. This account is better suited to make sense of the way collective movements appeal to solidarity in their diverse and agonistic practices. I conclude by applying this framework to a set of cases and demonstrate that it helps us to evaluate diverging calls to solidarity in a context of mis- and disinformation. While positive solidarity has its historical place and can be a tool for progressive aims, it can also foster the dangers of increased political polarization, and which the negative concept can avoid.

Author

• Rouven Symank, Freie Universität Berlin