The Open Society And Its Complexities
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The Open Society and Its Complexities
The "Open Society" is a society of free individuals, cooperating while pursing diverse ways of living. The Open Society and Its Complexities marshals formal models and empirical evidence to show that our open society is grounded on the moral foundations of human cooperation originating in our distant evolutionary past, but has built upon these foundation a complex society that requires us to rethink both the nature of moral justification and the meaning of democratic self-governance.
The Open Society and Its Complexities
Author: Gerald Gaus
language: en
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Release Date: 2021-08-06
A mere two decades ago it was widely assumed that liberal democracy and the Open Society it created had decisively won their century-long struggle against authoritarianism. Although subsequent events have shocked many, F.A. Hayek would not have been surprised that we are in many ways disoriented by the society we have created. As he understood it, the Open Society was a precarious achievement in many ways at odds with our deepest moral sentiments. His path-breaking analyses argued that the Open Society runs against our evolved attraction to "tribalism" that the Open Society is too complex for moral justification; and that its self-organized complexity defies attempts at democratic governance. In his final, wide-ranging book, Gerald Gaus critically reexamines Hayek's analyses. Drawing on diverse work in social and moral science, Gaus argues that Hayek's program was manifestly prescient and strikingly sophisticated, always identifying real and pressing problems. Yet, Gaus maintains, Hayek underestimated the resources of human morality and the Open Society to cope with the challenges he perceived. Gaus marshals formal models and empirical evidence to show that our Open Society is grounded on moral foundations of human cooperation originating in our distant evolutionary past, but has built upon them a complex and diverse society that requires us to rethink both the nature of moral justification and the meaning of democratic self-governance. In these fearful, angry and inwardly-looking times, when political philosophy has itself become a hostile exchange between ideological camps, The Open Society and Its Complexities shows how moral and ideological diversity, so far from being the enemy of a free and open society, can be its foundation.
The Open Society as an Enemy
Nearly 80 years ago, Karl Popper gave a spirited philosophical defence of the Open Society in his two-volume work, The Open Society and Its Enemies. In this book, J. McKenzie Alexander argues that a new defence is urgently needed because, in the decades since the end of the Cold War, many of the values of the Open Society have come under threat once again. Populist agendas on both the left and right threaten to undermine fundamental principles that underpin liberal democracies, so that what were previously seen as virtues of the Open Society are now, by many people, seen as vices, dangers, or threats. The Open Society as an Enemy interrogates four interconnected aspects of the Open Society: cosmopolitanism, transparency, the free exchange of ideas, and communitarianism. Each of these is analysed in depth, drawing out the implications for contemporary social questions such as the free movement of people, the erosion of privacy, no-platforming and the increased political and social polarisation that is fuelled by social media. In re-examining the consequences for all of us of these attacks on free societies, Alexander calls for resistance to the forces of reaction. But he also calls for the concept of the Open Society to be rehabilitated and advanced. In doing this, he argues, there is an opportunity to re-think the kind of society we want to create, and to ensure it is achievable and sustainable. This forensic defence of the core principles of the Open Society is an essential read for anyone wishing to understand some of the powerful social currents that have engulfed public debates in recent years, and what to do about them. Early praise for The Open Society as an Enemy "Many people have waded into the culture wars, but very few have rigorously and engagingly examined why the way we think about each other is changing. J McKenzie Alexander probes the assumptions we make about contemporary society and exposes who benefits from outrage and polarisation. Everyone who talks about the 'open society' and what it means should read this book." — Ros Taylor, author of The Future of Trust “I’m not sure I’ve ever read a work of political philosophy as forensic and yet so full of heart and humour as Jason McKenzie Alexander’s The Open Society as an Enemy. It’s not simply that the book applies an astonishing breadth of expertise to the most neuralgic issues of our time - from political and economic polarisation, political extremism, climate change and the lottery of birthplace, to no-platforming and the discursive anarchy of social media - it’s that McKenzie Alexander writes with deep empathy for those who doubt, by now, that the open society, in its various forms, can still work, and this makes his defence of it all the more compelling and complete.” — Abby Innes, author of Late Soviet Britain: Why Materialist Utopias Fail