Two forms of solidarity: Their relation to the capacity to think and to alienation

Abstract

Self-reflective thinking guards against the flight to authoritarian fantasies and leaders—a flight seen recently, for example, in the election of Donald Trump as US president. The capacity to think reflectively requires a sense of security which, if not internalized, can come from a feeling of belonging. But, if we need to belong to feel secure, how free are we to think differently from the group? I propose two types of solidarity—true solidarity, where a sense of universal kinship fosters compassion and a sense of responsibility for care that makes it important to reflect on what we do; and false solidarity, a shared paranoid/manic fantasy of superiority to a despised group, in which personal thinking threatens a brittle sense of belonging. Right-wing populism is a way to cope with anxieties about economic/cultural dispossession through such fantasies of superiority. But the Left has its own false solidarity—a manic bond that refuses empathy with the pain of the dispossessed on the Right, and even attacks those on the Left who are deemed insufficiently attentive to particular social justice issues. False solidarity is likely to evoke a complementary reaction—similar aggressive, resistant attitudes—in those it targets, resulting in a political impasse. But humility and active compassion may open the way to real dialogue.