The Resilience of Abyssal Exclusions in Our Societies: Toward a Post-Abyssal Law

Boaventura de Sousa Santos

doi:10.1163/22112596-02201011

Abstract

At a time in which we are going through the ruins of two models of social transformation – social revolution and social reformism –, I identify a radical division between metropolitan and colonial social relations. I describe and denounce what I call an ‘abyssal line’ between these two realities. The difference between the two sides is that on the metropolitan side we can claim rights, as we are fully human. Conversely, on the colonial side, exclusion is abyssal, people are sub-human, and therefore have no rights. To denounce this abyssal exclusion, we should learn other types of knowledge that allow us to produce radical diagnoses of our societies. We should become more aware of the diversity of social experience in the world, an experience of untold and repugnantly unjust suffering, but also of neglected creativity and innovation. We should develop a law of common goods, democratic pluralism, interculturality, and dignity.

Highlights

I just finished a large European Research Council grant project entitled alice, Strange Mirrors, Unsuspected Lessons: Leading Europe to a New Way of Sharing the World Experiences.[1]
After five centuries of providing solutions for the world, Europe seems incapable of solving its own problems
It should learn from the experiences of the Global South but, colonial prejudice still prevails in Europe, to such an extent, that Europe does not feel it could learn anything from the outside world

Summary

Introduction

I just finished a large European Research Council (erc) grant project entitled alice, Strange Mirrors, Unsuspected Lessons: Leading Europe to a New Way of Sharing the World Experiences.[1]. Europeans consider themselves more developed; they have solved all the problems others are still wrestling with, and nothing useful can come from there This prevents Europe from learning from the world, which is today a fascinating field of innovation, alternatives, and creativity, which does not reach either our news or our universities. The two models of social transformation at the beginning of the 20th century were very different and the parties were polarized, but they had something in common They both shared a faith in science and scientific knowledge as the privileged means to solve social problems. They both focused on the idea that social transformation would come about through a centralized state and a uniform system of law. They are often conceived of as ‘the new normal’ produced by more visible crises, such as the financial crises, which tend to become permanent and thereby naturalized

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Post-Abyssal Topics Common Goods