Self-transparency and the possibility of deliberative politics

Abstract

I argue against the notion of self-transparency which underwrites the politics of presence. This connects situation, identity, and perspective in such a way as to be incompatible with deliberative politics and treats self-understanding as authoritative, rendering it insensitive to the possibility that our self-under standings may be distorted. I propose a hermeneutic, narrative, conception of selfhood on which we relate to our lives as authors, constructing our identities by employing the linguistic and narrative resources which our respective situations make available to us. This admits the possibility that others may provide us with superior interpretations of our lives, which is a precondition of deliberative politics. Given the possibility that our self-understandings may be distorted, deliberative citizens have a duty to challenge problematic self-under standings. Anchoring criticism to public deliberation, together with the her meneutic premise that a measure of self-opacity is universal, secures such challenges against the charge of authoritarianism levelled at traditional ideol ogy-critique.