Testimony as Political Argument

Abstract

On the one hand, when compared with the ‘original meaning’ of politics in the Classical or Christian thought, contemporary liberal democracies in general understand politics in a reduced sense. On the other hand, however, democratic debates constantly allow for opening new horizons of interpreting politics. One way to radically renew politics is accepting authentic testimonies as political arguments. To illustrate this point, I offer the reflective analysis of a concrete case concerning the hotly debated topic of migrants in Europe: a Benedictine monastery receives and hosts illegal migrants in Hungary. This example deserves our interest for – when not tendentiously misinterpreted – it can neither be classified as an argument of the conservative approach to migrants nor does it support the liberal reading of the events. It implies, at the same time, a positive and a negative critique to both approaches by simply going beyond the usual political categories. In order to see how testimony works as a political argument I undertake three steps: 1) Instead of defining testimony, I show through a phenomenological analysis three characteristics of the given example that are both, essential and relevant for political discourse: a) the essentially indeterminate meaning of testimony; b) self-exposure and self-sacrifice; c) the particular political message of authentic testimony. In the next step, I offer a brief analysis of contemporary political discourse to highlight those aspects concerning which authentic testimonies may transform the meaning of politics: a) mediatization; b) lack of authenticity and credibility; c) technical scientific language; d) impersonal approach to political issues. As a third step, I unite these two analysis by asking what counts as a political argument in general and whether and how testimonies can function as political arguments. In my conclusion, I distinguish two types of politics according to their attitude towards testimony: one that is open to authentic testimonies and one that rejects them. By showing some fatal consequences of the latter option I argue for recovering some of politics’ original meaning.