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Abstract
Today, representative politics are often perceived as being primarily concerned with short-term goals. Moreover, the future appears to be pre-determined by economic or technological necessities. This ‘closing’ of the future, however, becomes increasingly problematic in the face of global existential crises, such as environmental depletion and climate change. These catastrophic developments could only be mitigated by immediate, decisive political interventions, which would amount to systemic changes that redirect technological research and economic activities. This article seeks to outline how political theory and philosophy can contribute to “(re-)Politicizing the Future”. I argue that political thought should take temporality, and in particular futurity, as a central conceptual and methodological concern. Drawing on the works of prominent twentieth century thinkers such as Hannah Arendt, Stanley Cavell, and Jacques Derrida, I want to develop a deepened analytical understanding of the possibility for a ‘future directed’ political thought which highlights intrinsic connections between sustainability and democracy.
Highlights
Politics is concerned with the future—this seems to be too obvious to need stating
We have investigated the connections between futurity, democracy, and sustainability by looking more closely at notions of democracy and temporality
While it is important to highlight how forms of inequality, oppression and discrimination are institutionalized and have shaped our material environment, a critical and open engagement with the past and present forms of violence should acknowledge the contingency of the present
Summary
Politics is concerned with the future—this seems to be too obvious to need stating. Whether in debates about the building of a new road, the overhaul of national pension systems, or the forging of transnational agreements on climate change mitigation, all these disparate forms of political decisionmaking carry implicit or explicit visions of preferable futures. These partial, local notions of ‘progress’ are established by looking back on past developments, but do not make it possible to predict the future (Koselleck 2002: 221) Such an understanding of history, Arendt maintains, can loosen the power the past holds over political actors while retaining historical stories and events as shared reference points and examples for political discourse. To stress that our understanding of the past is partial and that things did not necessarily have to develop the way that they turned out, might make it easier to acknowledge the complexity and contingency of our current economic, social, and political status-quo This is important for an understanding of democracy which takes the Greek notion of doxa, as the possibility of different viewpoints or opinions that hold truth, seriously. I will concentrate more concretely on establishing a link between futurity and the concept of democracy— strengthening the connection between an understanding of future(s) as open and multiple and a normative commitment to democracy
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