Abstract
The paper argues that the climate crisis is a political issue, not merely a scientific issue, and that agonistic democratic theory (Mouffe) remains helpful to underpin political education. It offers three elaborations that support this argument. The first is on how the category of the “enemy” in Mouffe’s work does or does not play a role in political education. The second addresses the misinterpretation of agonistic political theory as requiring the active fostering of conflict. The third elaboration is on how antagonism can be transformed into agonism. On this point, the paper argues that agonistic political education involves the uncoercive rearrangement of the desire (Spivak) to eradicate an enemy into the desire to contest a political adversary in democratic struggle. It concludes by discussing the climate crisis as a frontier of struggle that ought to play a prominent role in political education today, and that illustrates the viability of agonistic democratic education.
Introduction
In past decades, Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic democratic theory has been taken up by educational scholars to think about approaches to democratic political education different from the transmission of knowledge about political systems, and from the emphasis on fostering rational deliberation (e.g., Biesta, 2011; Ruitenberg, 2009; Sant, 2021; Tryggvason, 2018; Zembylas, 2011). In a nutshell, Mouffe’s model of democracy revolves around a conception of the political as “the dimension of antagonism that is inherent in human relations” (Mouffe, 2000b: 15) and “constitutive of human societies: (Mouffe, 2005a: 9). The realm of politics comprises those elements of society that are affected by this political dimension or, more specifically, “the ensemble of practices, discourses and institutions which seek to establish a certain order and organize human coexistence in conditions that are always potentially conflictual because they are affected by the dimension of ‘the political’” (Mouffe, 2000b: 15). Each political order that is established is contingent and will provoke political contestation; this is not a matter of a failure of rational deliberation, compromise, or consensus building, but an inevitable result of a fundamental disagreement with the political order as it is. The challenge for democratic politics is not to try to eliminate such contestation, which Mouffe considers vital to democracy itself, but to ensure it plays out in properly political terms, that is, as a dispute about the power relations that structure society and not about the moral qualities or failings of politicians, nationalist attachments, and so on. This requires a channeling of antagonistic opposition into agonism: Envisaged from the point of view of ‘agonistic pluralism,’ the aim of democratic politics is to construct the ‘them’ in such a way that it is no longer perceived as an enemy to be destroyed, but as an ‘adversary,’ that is, somebody whose ideas we combat but whose right to defend those ideas we do not put into question. (Mouffe, 2000a: 101–102)
Agonistic democratic education, then, would educate political adversaries (not moral enemies) and give room for political passions (which are different from personal emotions) (Ruitenberg 2009).
My purpose in this paper is to offer a number of elaborations on agonistic political education. Some of these are responses to what I perceive to be misconceptions of agonistic democratic theory—including in my own earlier work—and how it can be used in or translated to educational contexts; others are elaborations on points that I believe have received too little attention. Through these responses, I argue (1) that it is crucial the climate crisis is framed as a political issue, not merely a scientific issue, and (2) that agonistic democratic theory remains helpful to understand conflicts about this political issue. The first area I address is the tension between Mouffe’s distinction between enemies and adversaries and the context of education, specifically elementary and secondary compulsory schooling. In the political sphere, the “enemy” can be placed outside the legitimate domain of disagreement. However, if children and youth express similar views, it is, at minimum, less straightforward that they should be considered “enemies” and placed outside the legitimate domain of disagreement. The second area that merits elaboration is the educational interpretation—and, sometimes, misinterpretation—of agonistic political theory as requiring the active fostering of conflict. Education is often interpreted as the preparation for a conflictual political sphere, and the thinking is that children and youth should practice engagement in such conflict in the safer space of the classroom. A related issue that arises in this interpretation is the idea that class discussions should focus on “real” disagreements that have a direct bearing on students’ lives. The third elaboration is of education as not simply a domain of practice onto which agonistic democratic theory can be applied or to which it can be translated. I argue here that education can contribute to agonistic democratic theory by giving insight into how antagonism can be transformed into agonism. In this section, I will discuss education both as an institutional channel that can contain and direct antagonistic desires, and as an “uncoercive rearrangement of desires” (Spivak, 2004). I conclude with a discussion of the climate crisis as a new frontier of struggle that ought to play a prominent role in political education. In the context of this struggle, I continue to advocate for an agonistic democratic approach to political education today, as long as it takes the three issues I have raised into account.
Enemies, adversaries, and education
Mouffe’s distinction between adversaries and enemies places different kinds of struggles within or outside the boundaries of the political sphere. While an adversary is “somebody whose ideas we combat but whose right to defend those ideas we do not put into question” (Mouffe, 2000a: 102), the figure of the enemy does not disappear entirely. Rather, it is reserved for those seeking to create a fascist, theocratic, or otherwise undemocratic political order, thus rejecting “adhesion to the ethico-political principles of liberal democracy: liberty and equality” (102).
This distinction between the enemy and adversary has provoked further debate in political theory, not least because the category of the enemy is a direct reference to Carl Schmitt’s work. Other political theorists, including those who consider themselves “agonistic” thinkers such as James Tully and William Connolly, have distanced themselves from what they consider the “dissociative” nature of Mouffe’s work. However, in later work Mouffe has reaffirmed the importance of the enemy/adversary distinction and, indeed, the necessity of the category of the enemy. In response to other democratic theorists, she writes: I do agree with Connolly when he insists on the role respect must play between adversaries engaged in an agonistic struggle. But I believe that it is necessary to question the limits of this agonistic respect. Can all antagonisms be transformed into agonism? In other words, must all positions be considered legitimate and must they be granted a place inside the agonistic public sphere? Or must certain claims be excluded because they undermine the conflictual consensus that constitutes the symbolic framework in which opponents recognise themselves as legitimate adversaries? To put it another way, can one envisage pluralism without antagonism? (2014: 153)
The questions are clearly rhetorical and Mouffe’s answer is negative: if there is only agonism without a fundamental antagonism that gives rise to it, if there is only respect between adversaries without a boundary to the In order to think and act politically, we cannot escape the moment of decision and this requires establishing a frontier and determining a space of inclusion/exclusion. … I certainly do not intend to deny the importance of a democratic ethos but I think it would be a mistake to reduce democratic politics to the promotion of an ethics of agonistic respect. (2014: 153)
In the political realm, both nationally and internationally, we continue to see enemies who must be excluded from the agonistic struggle between adversaries precisely in order to protect and preserve the possibility of such political, agonistic struggle. The attack on the US Capitol Building in Washington DC of January 6, 2021 is a recent example; the charges and convictions of seditious conspiracy we have seen in response indicate precisely that the perpetrators had placed themselves outside a political sphere in which adversaries share a minimum of respect for democratic ground values.
However, in the context of education, the concept of the enemy becomes more problematic. I have encountered strong discomfort with and resistance to agonistic pluralism when discussing Mouffe’s ideas with educators, especially in Belgium and the Netherlands, but also in the United States (about which more in the section, “The educational transformation of antagonism into agonism”). The concern has been that Mouffe’s maintenance of the category of the enemy provides an excuse to those who would rather expel, criminalize, and give up on radicalized youth in schools than continue the effort of including and engaging them in dialogue. Educators, including school teachers as well as those involved in informal education outside of schools, have expressed a preference for deliberative, dialogical, and peace-building models they perceive as more conducive to social and democratic cohesion, the development of shared understanding, and, ultimately, peaceful co-existence (see, for example, Levy, 2020).
Indeed, we cannot simply declare a child an “enemy” and decide they have placed themselves outside the boundaries of legitimate disagreement. This has been discussed in literature on extremism and deradicalization efforts in schools, and educational objections to the “Prevent” policy in the UK. The obvious objection to the use of Mouffe’s category of the enemy in school contexts is that students are in the process of studying, learning, trying out, and practicing ideas, skills, and dispositions. A student’s expression of extremist allegiance and detachment from the basic commitments of liberty and equality, and/or democracy itself, cannot be taken at face value as the kind of expression that should place them outside the sphere of legitimate political adversaries. This is not to say that such an expression cannot ever be cause for concern; if repeated and, especially, if coupled with violent action, it can even be grounds for expulsion from the school community. However, the primary response ought to be educational, not political.
Doret de Ruyter and Stijn Sieckelinck make a helpful distinction in this regard in their proposal for an “educative ethos” to guide democratic education, namely between the ideas and ideals students should be able to express and those the school can accept: while students should have “the opportunity of expressing, and thereby encountering and exchanging with others, their ideals, i.e., exploring sources of significance and purpose for themselves and others” (2023: 425), they should also be taught that “having the freedom to express ideas and ideals does not imply that everything that students are allowed to say in school can be accepted by the school” (426). The criteria for the acceptance or recognition of ideas by the school are not narrow, based on conventions of politeness or the teacher’s personal comfort level. Rather, the ideas that will not be taken up or validated are those “that undermine the possibility of other pupils to present themselves as they are or that seriously harm groups in school or society” (427). This seems to me a helpful distinction and an appropriately educational response. De Ruyter and Sieckelink see this response as congruent with Mouffe’s ideas: By setting limits to which ideas and ideals can be recognized in school, schools also prepare students to deal with the limits to self-expression that exist within the wider democratic society and to learn to live peacefully with unavoidable disagreements about deeply held convictions. They can learn to see the other as an adversary rather than an enemy, as fellow citizens who, in Chantal Mouffe’s terms, perceive disagreement in terms of agonistic opposition rather than viewing others as antagonistic enemies. (428)
However, de Ruyter and Sieckelinck go on to disagree with Mouffe on her sharp distinction between the moral and political register. They write: In contrast with Mouffe’s proposition, we do believe that moral evaluation should also be part of what can or cannot be recognized in schools, for some ideals undermine human dignity and some ways of pursuing ideals truly are harmful to others. And becoming attached to the basic moral rules of society is certainly part of the socialization function of the school. (428)
At the risk of stating the obvious: Mouffe is not an educational scholar, and did not propose her views on the enemy/adversary distinction in or for an educational context. Therefore, an objection to Mouffe’s views on the grounds that they cannot be applied wholesale to education is, in my view, both right and wrong: Mouffe’s views cannot be applied wholesesale to education for the simple reason that they were never written for education. This, however, is not a reason to reject the views; instead, we need to ask educational questions about how and where they can or cannot helpfully inform education. In the case of de Ruyter and Sieckelinck’s comments about the role of moral evaluation, we should ask what this teaches us about schools as spaces that are not fully political in the sense that Mouffe gives to this term. I don’t disagree that schools have a socializing function that involves an assessment of ideas and ideals against the basic moral rules of society. However, this is precisely
Aislinn O’Donnell further explains the problems and injustices that result when the category of the enemy is extended to those perceived to be at “risk” of becoming enemies, and considered applicable to children. This has happened, for example, as a result of the Prevent policy, part of the UK’s larger counterterrorism strategy. This policy suggests that student expressions that a teacher perceives as an indicator of the risk of radicalization should be reported for further investigation to a non-educational body outside the school. This mechanism securitizes education, which, as O’Donnell writes, “undermines the conditions that would otherwise foster trust, free speech, enquiry, thinking, understanding, imagination and judgement, all conditions for, and consequences of, ‘good’ education, as opposed to indoctrination or co-optation of education in the service of security agendas” (2017: 184).
In short, then, neither the view that Mouffe’s work can be applied directly in political education, nor the view that Mouffe’s work cannot be used at all in education, are helpful. Indeed, the category of the “enemy” in Mouffe’s work cannot—except in the rarest and most threatening of circumstances—be used to categorize students. However, political education that aims to enable an understanding of the political order in which students live and how it has come about should include the concept of the enemy in relation to the necessary boundaries of the political sphere. Moreover, not only do I dispute Tryggvason’s claim that “both Mouffe and Ruitenberg …
Fostering classroom conflict
The second area I want to address is the interpretation of agonistic democratic political education as involving the playing out of political disagreements in classrooms, and even stimulating conflict, as a form of political practice (e.g., Leiviskä and Pyy 2021). Before I address my specific concerns with this interpretation, let me discuss the mistranslation of
One of my concerns with interpretations of agonistic political education as involving the active promotion of conflict in the classroom is that they tend to rely on developmental conceptions of education. Education is often interpreted as the place where children are prepared for later participation in the political sphere. In some sense, I am sympathetic to the conception of the classroom as a laboratory and studio, a place where ideas and practices can be tried out and rehearsed without the consequences they might have in less protected spaces. However, I agree with Gert Biesta (2010) that the problem with an understanding of democratic political education as preparation for later participation in democratic politics is that it tends to assume a developmental understanding of education in which schools can foster certain knowledge, skills, and dispositions relevant to democratic life, but those won’t be put into political practice until the child has become an adult and can participate in politics outside of the school. While I don’t here draw on the specific Arendtian analysis that Biesta uses, I agree that the use of classroom discussions as exercises that build skills of arguing and listening suggests that students do not yet “exist politically,” that is, that they do not yet participate and are affected by the political struggles that shape and contest the social order in which they live.
In earlier work I have, inadvertently, contributed to such a developmental conception: In response to one of the central questions posed for this special issue, “What skills, values, and beliefs are necessary for democratic participation, and what kind of citizenship education best develops these democratic capacities?” I will answer that citizenship education ought to focus on fostering a capacity for disagreement, and that it ought to do so in a way that recognizes that democratic disagreement is a passionate affair. (Ruitenberg 2010: 42).
While I believe that political anger is an important motivator in the forming of political movements, I do not believe such anger or disagreement as a “capacity” needs to be taught or “developed.” Rather, what is at stake educationally in agonistic political education is a thorough understanding of the more deep-seated, passionate, and irreconcilable divisions to which many issues can be traced. In other words, it is an understanding of the ineradicable nature of political struggle that is the educational aim. For that reason, the analysis of The ability to read the political landscape both in its contemporary configuration and its historical genesis. Another way of putting this is to say that students must learn to read the social order in political terms, that is, in terms of disputes about the interpretation of liberty and equality and the hegemonic social relations that should shape them. (2009: 278).
This ability to read the political landscape also involves understanding “historical cases of political resistance to particular hegemonic arrangements” (277) as well as social movements contesting the current political order.
My second concern with the interpretation of agonistic political education as involving class discussions, is that, when such discussions focus on political struggles and contestations that pertain directly to students’ lives, this comes with significant risks. Based on Simon Critchley’s work, I have advocated an “inductive” approach to political education, which takes as its point of departure a concrete situation of injustice relevant to students’ social context; examples mentioned were “a labour strike, an act of police brutality, or the discriminatory treatment of migrant workers” (2010: 52). I argued: The educational challenge is coming to see that the demand for justice that arises in a particular situation exceeds the particularity of that situation because it violates a more general substantive commitment. An inductive political education, then, would begin not with political theories or the abstract request to “imagine a desirable society” but with discussions of concrete perceptions of injustice. (52)
My concern is not with the inductive approach, per se, as I still believe it is helpful to connect large abstract political divisions to concrete instances of these divisions that students can recognize in their society. However, the term “discussions” in the last sentence can be interpreted as suggesting that teachers should stage classroom discussions in which they invite students to take a side, so that the instance of injustice becomes an active topic of debate in the class. This approach comes with a major risk of exacerbating existing inequalities and vulnerabilities in the classroom. Let me explain this with a more recent example.
Edda Sant (2021) proposes specific pedagogical strategies for political education that work with, not against, political conflict. One of those strategies she calls “pedagogies of articulation,” in direct reference to the role of political articulation in chains of equivalence in the work of Laclau and Mouffe. Sant explains that these pedagogies “create relational opportunities for learners to find and express different subjectivities” and to experience “the contingency of political alliances” by engaging in classroom discussions on topics likely to elicit contradictory views (131–132). She then gives the following suggestion of a possible classroom discussion: “the teacher could [explore] gender ideology by requesting students position themselves in relation to a dispute. For instance, should transgender students use school bathrooms that match their identity?” (132)
The phrasing of the question here is ambiguous, as it could refer to trans* students’ access to gender-neutral or all-gender bathrooms, as well as to the right of students who identify as (trans)boys to use the boys’ washroom, and students who identify as (trans)girls to use the girls’ washroom, regardless of the gender indicated on their birth certificates. 1 For the purposes of my discussion, this ambiguity is immaterial, as I believe neither version of the question should be raised in a classroom, and both versions of the question are poor examples of a political disagreement that would aid democratic political education from an agonistic perspective. The first part of this argument is educational; the second political.
I will make the strong claim here that the question, “should transgender students use school bathrooms that match their identity?” should not be raised in a classroom for the simple reason that no elementary or secondary student should have their identity or rights questioned in a school classroom. Discussions that focus on some students’ identities and concomitant rights should be off the table within the K-12 classroom. K-12 students have limited political agency and limited or no choice about the classrooms they spend many hours per week in. For that reason, questions about any student’s right to be in and feel welcomed in that space, if they are raised, belong in spaces outside the classroom, such as the school district, teacher union, and Ministry of Education. Following this principle, the discussion about whether Muslim girls should be allowed to wear hijab in the school is not a question for debate in a K-12 classroom, as is the discussion about whether students whose parents are undocumented immigrants should be allowed to be in the classroom.
In addition to the educational problem of proposing discussion topics that call into question some students’ right to be in and feel welcomed in the classroom, I also believe such topics are often poor examples of the fundamental political divisions that are at the heart of agonistic democracy. By this I don’t mean that these questions may not give rise to heated political discussion, as we can observe empirically that they have done or continue to do just that. However, not all questions that give rise to heated discussions are about the fundamental conceptions of a just political order on which no agreement can be reached. David Backer analyzes the difference between classroom discussions in a deliberative tradition and those guided by agonistic perspectives on democracy. While he does not discuss the problem with developmental and preparatory views of classroom discussions, his interpretation of an example of the death of a homeless woman in my 2010 article is helpful. He writes: “An inductive political education that engages social imaginaries and responds to concrete situations of perceived injustice would look like a discussion about
While the question of trans* students bathroom access seems to me a clear case of a question that does not belong in a K-12 classroom, there are many cases that are less straightforward. There is always a risk that a discussion on different fundamental conceptions of a just political order devolve into comments about particular students or their families. A discussion about “big” versus “small” government and a government’s income tax policies, which is a clear example of the left/right political struggle at the heart of Mouffe’s conception of agonism, can be used as an opportunity for comments about a student whose parents rely on social assistance. Even if the tragic accidental death of the homeless woman mentioned above is taken up in the context of a larger discussion about poverty, there is still a risk this will lead to comments about a student whose family is experiencing or has experienced homelessness or precarious housing. There are few topics that don’t have some relation to the lives of students or their families.
An important task of political education is to give students an understanding of the political order in which they live and how it has come about. This involves an understanding of the inevitable contestation that is at the heart of democracy, histories of social movements, and so forth. It also involves an understanding of the challenge of keeping such political contestation in the political, not moral register. Comments such as “your parents are lazy” do not belong in political education not just because we can label them as “rude” or “offensive” but also because they shift to a moral register of comments about people’s personal qualities. The challenge for the teacher, then, is to balance the inevitable socializing task with the important educational task of working through the political aspects of the issue and how the fundamental political disagreement about, for example, “big” or “small” government has been at the heart of the political landscape of a country.
The educational transformation of antagonism into agonism
Let me turn now to the third area, which is less a misconception than an area that has not yet received enough attention, namely the contribution educational theory can make to agonistic democratic theory. In 2020, I had the opportunity to discuss Mouffe’s agonistic perspective in a symposium on civic and political education hosted by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. One of the participants, who was clearly skeptical of Mouffe’s work, asked, rather exasperatedly, “by what magic” Mouffe proposes to transform antagonism into agonism. Although the question may have been intended, and can certainly be taken, as a dismissal of the possibility of such transformation, I want to take a more charitable interpretation here because the question can serve as a good entry point for a more detailed discussion of the conception of education at stake in this transformation.
In the broadest terms, the question about the “magic” by which antagonism becomes agonism points at an intervention that is required for the transformation. While there are many different kinds of interventions, ranging from juridical to medical and from economic to therapeutic, my point of departure will be that
I am not the first to propose this line of thinking. Sharon Todd and Carl Anders Säfström asked in 2008: “How might we think about the necessary transformation from antagonism into agonism as part of a specifically democratic educational project?” However, Todd and Säfström turn to the domain of the ethical, including concepts of respect and hospitality, to address this question. I take a different approach here. In short: I analyze the various ways in which Mouffe and scholars who have worked extensively with her scholarship, such as Tambakaki, describe the transformation of antagonism into agonism. This analysis shows two main metaphors: sublimation and taming. Based on those metaphors, I propose that the educational transformation of antagonism into agonism can be productively understood as a form of what Gayatri Spivak (2004: 526) calls “an uncoercive rearrangement of desires.” I also discuss the role of institutions in providing what Mouffe calls “channels” to facilitate the sublimation and taming of antagonistic desires.
In Mouffe’s texts, the transformation of antagonism into agonism is repeatedly characterized as both “sublimation” and “taming.” I see these not as distinct processes, but rather as different angles and theoretical traditions by which this transformation can be understood. For example, Mouffe writes that the “antagonistic dimension … can never be completely eliminated but only “ If we want to acknowledge on the one side the permanence of the antagonistic dimension of the conflict, while on the other side allowing for the possibility of its ‘
In The prime task of democratic politics is not to eliminate passions or to relegate them to the private sphere in order to establish a rational consensus in the public sphere. Rather, it is to ‘
The use of quotation marks suggests that Mouffe is aware she is speaking metaphorically, and that the reader can hear an ‘as it were’ or ‘so to speak’ after both terms. However, she does not discuss the metaphors or provide further detail on these processes of taming and sublimation—as Todd and Säfström (2008) put it with amusing understatement, “what constitutes this movement from antagonism to agonism is something about which Mouffe is not particularly loquacious”—thus giving rise to questions about the “magic” enabling this transformation.
Because of Mouffe’s repeated references to psychoanalysis, I interpret both ‘taming’ and ‘sublimation’ psychoanalytically. Freud’s
The psychoanalytic perspective does not so much answer the question about the “magic” that can transform antagonism into agonism, as give it more specificity. Taking this psychoanalytic angle and an understanding of taming and sublimation as occurring in the tension between the subject’s desires and the demands of the social context, it would appear that answers might come from both sides: the subject’s desires, and the pressures exerted by the social context. If we take the route of the former, we might think of education as a process of rearranging desires, a view that has already been proposed by Spivak in a different context. If we take the route of the latter, we might focus on the role of institutional arrangements in the redirecting of antagonism into agonism. Let me start with the latter.
Channeling antagonism institutionally
In addition to the metaphors of sublimation and taming, Mouffe repeatedly refers to “channels” and “channeling” when discussing the transformation of antagonism into agonism. For example, In One of my key theses is that the challenge for democratic politics is to provide the institutions which will allow for conflicts to take an agonistic form. Otherwise those conflicts might emerge as antagonism that might destroy the political association. (Martin and Mouffe, 2013: 232)
Tambakaki confirms that the channels that contain, direct, and thus enable the taming and sublimation of passions that always threaten to become antagonistic, are institutional in nature: “Mouffe calls for [the] taming [of passions], that is, for their public expression and, inevitably, moderation through democratic and, paradoxically, institutional channels—given her references to the left/right distinction” (2014: 7). So, it is important that the “channels” to which Mouffe refers are not temporary interventions; rather, they must be structural features of society: the institutions that form the very backbone of that society. They include political parties but also reimagined forms of democratic representation and forms of engagement and contestation, as well as media and, indeed, education.
For education to provide a channel to direct and contain antagonism and enable its transformation into agonism, students should be able to experience and express collective passions that may position other students as adversaries but not as enemies. Differences between social identities (ethnicity, religion, gender, etc.) and political subjectivities (feminist, climate activist, degrowth proponent, anti-fascist, etc.) as well as between individual emotion and collective passion should thus be discussed explicitly (see also De Ruyter and Sieckelinck, 2023).
Rearranging antagonistic desire
The idea that education has a role to play in students’ desires, was proposed by Spivak (2004: 526) when she wrote that “education in the Humanities attempts to be an uncoercive rearrangement of desires.” Spivak’s specific point was that, in a world divided by colonialism, education in the Humanities should constitute for those who have been marginalized by colonialism an “uncoercive undermining of the class habit of obedience” (562) and a reorienting of the expectation of injustice to a desire for justice. However, the phrase “uncoercive rearrangement of desires” strikes me as a poignant more general description of education.
Biesta takes up Spivak’s point in a general, and existential, sense when he writes that education is about “arousing the desire in another human being for wanting to exist in and with the world as subject, that is, in a grown-up way” (2017: 431). In order to exist in and with the world in this “grow-up way,” the subject needs to ask “whether what one desires is what one should be desiring,” that is, whether what one desires is compatible with the needs and desires of others in the world, and the world itself (431).
I want to take up Spivak’s understanding of education as the uncoercive rearrangement of desires not in this broad, existential sense but in a narrower, political sense, to propose that education in liberal democracies should involve the uncoercive undermining of the desire to destroy legitimate adversaries, and the uncoercive fostering of the desire for democracy (see also Biesta, 2011). In other words, the transformation of antagonism into agonism can be understood as the uncoercive rearrangement of the desire to eradicate an enemy into the desire to contest a political adversary in democratic struggle.
A central component of this rearrangement of desires is a commitment to democracy, which is a commitment to subjugating antagonism to the limitations imposed on it by democracy. This is a commitment to discipline, to putting in the work to take the harder road of agonism. It is a commitment to democracy even when it would be less frustrating and more expedient to eliminate one’s enemy. Moreover, it needs to be a collective discipline, not an individual set of virtues. The desire to suppress conflict—including by declaring one’s opponent evil, immoral, incompetent or stupid, and thus illegitimate—emerges time and again, and refusing to yield to this desire is thus a choice that has to be made over and over again. As long as the opponent is similarly committed to democracy, they are a legitimate adversary and the conflict is a necessary part of democracy. The commitment to democracy must, at all times, take precedence over the disagreements one has with one’s adversaries; it also creates the limits for who can be considered an adversary, as those who wish to destroy democracy itself are not adversaries but enemies.
If the “magic” by which antagonism is transformed into agonism is first and foremost the educational fostering of a commitment to democracy so robust that it overrides and converts the desire to destroy the other that can arise, then how can education perform this “magic”? How can students come to understand themselves as democratic subjects, in the sense of people whose allegiance to democracy resists the desire to rid themselves of the annoyance of others who, within the limits of democracy, seek a different political order? One way to foster this commitment is to enable students to experience democracy, not in a simulated or preparatory sense, but in the sense of direct participation in decision-making and change, whether at school or in another grassroots setting. I have argued that schools are, by their reliance on inequality, not democratic institutions, but that democracy can nonetheless “enter” into schools (Ruitenberg 2008). Student-initiated strikes, school take-overs (Moreno and Mejía, 2022), and other forms of protest are prime examples of such entries. Emma Rowe and Jessica Gerrard (2019) suggest that forms of assembly and horizontal decision-making developed in social movements may also make their way into educational spaces (within and outside of schools), enabling students to experience democracy. Yet another way to foster commitment to democracy is to teach frankly about the alternatives to democracy, such as totalitarianism and authoritarianism.
The climate crisis as new frontier of political struggle
The climate crisis is an obvious threat but, for political education, it also offers an opportunity as a new frontier of struggle that has already captured the interest of a large number of young people in a way that “socialism” or “the left” have not, in recent years, been able to do. In her most recent book,
For education, understanding the climate crisis as a political frontier means taking it up explicitly in political education and not only, as is sometimes still the case, in science education. To use Bruno Latour’s (2004) terms, the climate crisis ought to be treated not merely as subject matter consisting of facts in the domain of science, but as concerns in the domain of politics. Van Poeck and Vandenabeele explicitly take up Latour’s framing of environmental issues as political matters of concern and not merely scientific matters of fact when they argue, in the context of environmental education, for “analysing the democratic character of educational practices instead of merely focusing on the acquisition of individual competences” (2012: 549). Other education scholars have also argued explicitly for a political understanding of climate change education or environmental education, more broadly. For example, Tryggvason and Öhman note that sustainability issues have a political dimension because “these issues are entangled with visions, hopes and opinions on how the society should be” (2019: 115). Building on such work that recognizes the political nature of climate change education, I advocate an uptake of the climate crisis in political education in agonistic ways that are aligned with the specific elaborations and clarifications offered in this paper: (1) Students who express incredulity at climate change, or who say they don’t care about it, are not to be cast as “enemies.” As De Ruyter and Sieckelinck (2023) suggest, students who express incredulity at climate change will not find their ideas validated or taken up by the school. However, if they resist political measures to mitigate climate change, such as increased government regulation of certain industries, they can be taken seriously as adversaries who have affects and reasons that explain their attachments. That said, outside of the classroom context, the concept of the “enemy” is certainly pertinent to the climate crisis. As Latour argues, the “foes” in the climate crisis are those who seek to maintain a strict separation between science and politics and who want to postpone action until all the facts have been established. He writes: The real advantage of making the state of war explicit instead of undeclared is that it might be the only way to begin to envisage … a political peace. … [P]olitical peace comes (2) We do not need to foment conflict about climate change in classrooms, and classroom debates about climate change are not “preparation” for later participation in democratic politics. The focus of education about climate change as a political frontier should be on fostering an understanding of the political interests at stake in battles over climate change mitigation and adaptation, which include the role of the state and fundamental interpretations of equality and liberty. By this I mean that disagreements about climate change mitigation and adaptation involve opposing views about key political issues such as the extent of state regulation and legislation versus industry self-regulation, and the continued pursuit of economic growth via “green economy” initiatives versus economic degrowth or steady-state scenarios. Long and Henderson outline an approach to climate change education that connects it explicitly to a critique of how quality and liberty have been interpreted in the United States. They anticipate such an approach will encounter significant resistance in light of “the fact that the American educational system – much like climate change itself – is rooted in the settler colonial control and racist exploitation of land and peoples” (2023: 81). (3) The transformation of antagonism into agonism is not “magic” but occurs through the taming and sublimation of antagonistic desires, which we can understand psychoanalytically. I have proposed the educational rearrangement of desires and, in particular, the sublimation of the desire to destroy the other into a desire for democracy in which we can oppose the other democratically, as key to this transformation. This means that we need to reaffirm a commitment to democracy as key to addressing the climate crisis. The French philosopher Dominique Bourg and American political theorist Kerry Whiteside (2009) acknowledge that the climate crisis can make it tempting to give up on democracy, as it has proven too slow and ineffective at responding to this crisis, and to rely on “more authoritarian structures, ones with the power to enforce new ecologically justified norms.” However, they argue that such a turn to more authoritarian structures is wrongheaded, and affirm “that reliance on the State is unavoidable in pursuit of this new conception of the collective interest, and … that the form of the State must remain democratic,” even if democratic institutions and structures need significant reform to become what they call an “ecological democracy” guided by principles of a “metaphysics of finitude.” Van Poeck and Vandenabeele likewise recognize “the tension between a sense of urgency and the need for democratic participation” in environmental matters (2012: 543). More recently, Mouffe has reiterated the need for a strong commitment to democracy in this historical moment. She recognizes that it can be tempting to give up on democracy and the challenges of the democratic Many ecological parties believe in the possibility of reaching a consensus on the policies that need to be implemented to decarbonize the economy. … They warn against attempts to politicize climate issues, claiming that it might create artificial divisions and impede the wide collaboration necessary for the implementation of a sustainable model of society. In line with this position, most ecological parties avoid taking sides in the confrontation between left and right, and declare themselves to be situated beyond such an axis. (2022: 52)
Mouffe believes this is wrongheaded and that the confrontation between left and right is as relevant as ever. I agree with her, not least because the global economic interests at the heart of the left/right distinction are central to the multiple ecological crises we face today. Mouffe aligns herself with “a radical ecological bifurcation which involves a rupture with financial capitalism” (52). An agonistic political education that addresses the climate crisis, therefore, is one that involves a deep analysis of global capitalism, the colonial structures that are part and parcel of the history of global capitalism, and their inextricable role in the climate and other ecological crises.
Footnotes
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The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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