Pandemic-induced ‘images of longing’: sensible starting points for an...

Starting with the assumption that universalism no longer has an easy standing in our times, I will discuss the most prominent arguments against universalism and examine them critically (accusations of fascism, eurocentrism, paternalism, rationalism, etc.).
In doing so, I will try to determine the relationship between particularism and universalism, as well as the importance of the question at stake for democracy itself. An attempt will be made to prove that the classic universal values of democracy, namely freedom, equality and solidarity, are constitutive for its functioning and consequentially point to one of the core problems of post-democratic tendencies in our societies: the fear of making universalistic political demands.
The following argument will try to delineate an emancipative universalism, which serves as a useful reference point for meaningful social criticism. The thesis is that the Eurocentric heritage of universal values is still valuable to formulating emancipative political demands through an inclusive approach, constituting the lowest common denominator of a res publica. The aim is to show how universalistic emancipative values offer a kind of identification framework which can be transferred to the specific situationof each and all, and used to formulate political demands accordingly. To support this thesis, some historical examples will be given.
Finally, based on two prominent motifs, which presumably imprinted themselves in the collective memory of our western societies through different image-variations during the Corona crisis, I’ll discuss the question of what was thereby expressed and whether or not it can be connected to emancipative universalist claims.
Considering the challenges of the 21st century, the question of a universalistic politics that guarantees the same principles to all people seems more relevant than ever because the real danger, it seems, are new fascisms, which absolutize and impose their particular interests on all others.