Absorbing the agony of agonism? The limits of cultural questioning and alternative variations of intercultural civility

Introduction

As it has been developed in political theory, agonistic pluralism is a critical reaction to the dominant liberal orientation towards consensus, neutrality and rational argumentation by stressing the need to acknowledge the inevitable partiality, conflict and passionate nature of politics and the public sphere. Recently the political philosophy of agonism has been applied by urban theorists to model intercultural urban encounters (Amin, 2002; Sandercock, 2003; Wood and Landry, 2008). Here a contrast is often drawn with rosy communitarian conceptions based on the value of community – as for instance in the British Community Cohesion Panel (Community Cohesion Review Team, 2001) – conceptions that are deemed to be unrealistic given the discordant nature of modern diverse cities.

This recent appeal of the concept of agonism in urban theory will be critically evaluated from the point of view of its suitability to intercultural civility, that is, the ability of citizens in culturally and ethnically complex cities to accommodate diversity in their relations with concrete ethno-cultural others in daily, prosaic encounters. Although the strength of the concept of agonism should be acknowledged in certain contexts, especially political arena’s broadly conceived (including, for instance, land-use planning), I will argue that it is less suitable for the kind of daily encounters in contexts that Ash Amin refers to as ‘micro-publics’, such as the classroom or the workplace.

Agonism is unrealistically demanding for interlocutors in such micro-publics, most importantly for the reason that it tends to overestimate a citizen’s resilience in the face of dealing with attempts by others to engage in cultural questioning. I will argue that agonistic contestation is inferior to two less demanding variations of intercultural civility, namely ‘difference-respect’, a non-evaluative recognition of the value of social attachments for the other, and ‘side-by-side citizenship’, a benign neglect of the ethno-cultural particularity of a concrete partner-to-interaction.

Agonism

Agonism, in its current form, emerged in political theory during the 1990s (Karagiannis and Wagner, 2008: 324). ¹ It has been developed mainly as a reaction to the dominance of, on the one hand, mainstream liberal positions by theorists such as Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls, that stress the importance of neutrality of state institutions and rational consensus, and on the other hand the politics of third-way liberalism (and its theorists such as Anthony Giddens) that embody the hope for a ‘post-political’ age. Although different variants of agonism can be distinguished (Wenman, 2003; Wingenbach, 2011), what these have in common is the worry that these features of liberalism and visions of (post-)politics instead of providing us with a fair way of accommodating equality and diversity actually fail to do justice to these values. The orientation towards state neutrality and rational consensus is misguided for the reason that this cannot be achieved and that any pretension to have achieved it in fact masks the dominance, the ‘hegemony’, of a particular interpretation of justice or the ‘common good’ by a particular social group or social class.

To speak of ‘hegemony’ here means, as Ernesto Laclau end Chantal Mouffe put it, that every political order is in fact a contingent articulation of power relations that lacks an ultimate rational ground (Laclau and Mouffe, 2001: chapters 1–2). Agonistic theory in that sense is ‘post-foundational’: the idea that contingency pervades every social order is well developed amongst agonistic theorists such as Chantal Mouffe, William Connolly and James Tully (Connolly, 1995, 2005; Mouffe, 2000, 2005a, 2013; Tully, 1995, 1999). Hence the shared insight that no particular set of values or rules can establish itself as ‘neutral’ and thus beyond contestation (Wingenbach, 2011: 41 ff.).

Now what really distinguishes agonism from other critiques levelled against liberal neutrality and rational individualism, such as communitarianism or multiculturalism, is the emphasis on political conflict and inevitable social antagonism. I will mainly concentrate on Chantal Mouffe here for the reason that she had the biggest influence on the application of agonism to the urban intercultural encounter. Mouffe’s point of departure is a social theory that consists of two basic elements. The first is the observation that people tend to want to belong to a certain social group. Far from being ‘archaic and premodern’ this human need ‘is part and parcel of the psychological make-up of human beings’ (Mouffe, 2005a: 24). Second, this human need at the same time is a source of friction in pluralistic societies. For identification is accompanied by contra-identification, by a ‘constitutive outside’ (Mouffe, 2005a: 15). It is only by somehow marking off those who do not belong from those who do that a social group and identification with it is possible.

Now this social ontology implies, according to Mouffe, that any modern pluralistic order entails the presence of latent of even explicit antagonisms internal to society itself. Instead of drawing the conclusion that Carl Schmitt thought was unavoidable, given this ontological dynamic, namely that the demos ought to be homogenous so that the friend/enemy distinction coincides with national borders (Schmitt, 1932/2007), Mouffe argues that the task of politics is to tame the antagonism of internal group formation without suppressing it. Suppression entails establishing one position, one group affiliation, as the hegemonic one which constitutes a violation of equality and freedom, values that Mouffe conceives of as central to a just political order. In fact, these ‘ethico-political values’ provide a symbolic common ground that makes the reigning in of antagonistic forces possible (Mouffe, 2000: 13, 102–103).

The task of politics is to transform the existing antagonisms, or ‘the political’, into a situation of agonism, in which the ‘other’ is no longer an enemy (to be destroyed) but a legitimate adversary, a political opponent. Politics can only arrive at a ‘conflictual consensus’ at best (Mouffe, 2000: 103, 2013: 8). In fact, given the sheer diversity of interests and identities this consensus is not just conflictual, but temporary as well: a truce rather than stable social harmony (Mouffe, 1999).

Agonism applied to urbanmicro-publics

What makes agonism appealing for urban theorists is its ability to accommodate the ‘unruly’ nature of modern complex cities better than many of its rivals, especially communitarian models. Contemporary cities are increasingly characterised by inequalities in terms of life chances and opportunities as a result of an – often spatially – uneven distribution of employment, good education, decent housing and a host of other public goods such as safety, healthcare and an unpolluted environment (Davis, 2006; Marcuse et al., 2009; Soja, 2010; UN-Habitat, 2008), although significant differences between cities in this regard should be acknowledged (Wacquant, 2008). Such inequalities often map onto ethnic categories exacerbating the sense amongst certain groups, especially visible minorities, of being at the bottom of society as a result of practices of racist discrimination (Massey and Denton, 1993; Musterd and Ostendorf, 1998). On the other hand, there is the sense amongst members of privileged communities that poor and desolate urban neighbourhoods are the result of a lack of integration, ability and responsibility of its inhabitants, often immigrant communities in the case of West-European cities. This flammable mix sometimes leads to violent eruptions, as happened in the UK in the summer of 2001 in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford when young Muslim men clashed with White youths and the public authorities (Amin, 2003).

In the wake of these street confrontations, theorists began to look for a model of living together in difference that was more in tune with the conflicts and tensions that a complex, diverse city embodies. Ash Amin’s article ‘Ethnicity and the multicultural city’ is one of the more influential arguments in favour of urban agonism in this regard, later taken up by urban theorists such as Leonie Sandercock and Phil Wood and Charles Landry (Amin, 2002; Sandercock, 2003; Wood and Landry, 2008). Suddenly the lack of acknowledgement of power relations and passions by utopian communitarian visions of social harmony on the one hand and rational, individualistic approaches of communicative-action theory on the other – quite influential until then in urban planning (Fainstein, 2009: 27) – seemed completely off the mark. As Sandercock puts it with regard to the latter approach: the tendency to stick to an ideal of rational discourse and decision-making and to bracket ‘the realm of the emotions as being unmanageable, ungovernable, downright dangerous’ precluded ‘the possibility of understanding the nature of much conflict in the city’ (2003: 163). Furthermore, the tendency to suppress this whole dimension of living with difference was not just present in urban theory but also, as Wood and Landry put it, in ‘a pattern of governance that avoided or suppressed debate and conflict and denied the space and forums to enable disagreement to be heard’ (2008: 278). What needs to be acknowledged both in theory and practice is the importance of, as Amin argues, ‘open and critical debate, mutual awareness, and a continually altering subjectivity’, an agonistic strategy that should replace ‘watchwords of trust, consensus, and cohesion’ (2002: 973).

There are older versions of urban agonism, avant la lettre so to speak, most importantly Sennett’s The Uses of Disorder (Sennett, 1970). The paradox that Sennett uncovers here in 1970 − namely that the orientation towards social harmony itself seems responsible for disruptive socio-political conflict – is strikingly similar to the work of Chantal Mouffe, James Tully and others from the 90s onwards in the tradition of agonism. It is only by confronting social conflict in ‘a mode of ongoing expression … pushing men to say what they think about each other’ that we are able to live together with difference in ‘a more civilized and mature’ manner (Sennett, 1970: 181, 150). The problem of community is that ‘aggression is denied outlets other than violence’ (1970: 179 ff.).

Hence the strategy of these urban theorists to allow for more open, civil strife in order to avoid outbursts of violent conflict. Part of this strategy, according to Amin, is to avoid focusing on the way the general public sphere – open, shared spaces such as city streets, squares, cafes, parks and shopping malls – is structured in the vain hope that the required intercultural ethos is cultivated here. This public space of modern cities is often no more than a place of transit, with little meaningful contact between strangers (Amin, 2002).

Instead, what Amin focuses on is the molecular politics of ‘micro-publics’. Micro-publics are spaces of association, with a limited entry for the general public, in which dialogue, debate and prosaic negotiations are compulsory; examples of which include the workplace, schools, colleges, sports clubs, neighbourhood houses and youth centres (Amin, 2002: 969). Such micro-publics within city space could be seedbeds for agonistic citizenship, particularly in diverse urban environments. This is not self-evident, however, given that micro-settings of interaction can be highly segregated along the lines of class, race and ethnicity. Moreover, if these spaces are themselves diverse in composition, segregation can take place on the level of ethnic affiliation and informal ordering of social relations (Dixon and Durrheim, 2003). Hence, these social spaces have to be organised in a certain way.

These micro-publics ought to engage in, as Amin puts it, ‘cultural questioning or transgression by taking people out of fixed relations and fixed images of self and otherness’ (2002: 969–970). Stereotypes of self and other ought to be critically identified and questioned by the participants. Amin argues that ‘cultural shifts’ in inter-ethnic relations ‘rely upon displacement, more precisely, the practice of negotiating diversity and difference’ (2002: 971). One way this can happen, according to Amin, is by engaging with strangers in some kind of common activity, such as maintaining community gardens and providing neighbourhood watch schemes. ² This can disrupt the easy labelling of the ethnic, religious and cultural others as enemies and initiate new attachments, new ways of living together with difference.

Yet instead of seeking local harmony, what should take place is a ‘vigorous, but democratic, clash of oppositions’ (Amin, 2005: 627). Citizens ought to be committed to ‘passionate interaction’ with the goal of ‘making transparent reasons for resentment and misunderstanding’ (2002: 973). If you deny inter-ethnic urban tensions they will recur in a more violent form as riots or extremist political movements, such as ethnic nationalism, islamophobia, religious fundamentalism and terrorism. In this way, facilitating civil conflict and controversy in the short term, may avoid long-term damage (Mouffe, 2005b; Sandercock, 2003: 162 ff.; Wood and Landry, 2008: 279).

The limits of agonism: Injury and counter-productivity

There is a certain anthropological optimism present in the recent eagerness to apply agonism to these micro-publics of everyday encounter. People are more vulnerable to psychological injury as a consequence of attempts by others to ‘de-centre’ their identity than is acknowledged here. This agonistic approach concerns citizens in contexts such as the sports club, were people come to recreate, or the classroom, where students come to learn, or the workplace, where people come to work and earn a living. In these mundane contexts, people’s ability to cope with discussions concerning their ethnic background or their religious beliefs seems overestimated. The idea that ethnic and cultural relations are helped by stimulating strife concerning world views here, albeit in the civil mode, is based on questionable premises. The resentment that these ‘cultural transgressions’ can lead to is likely to be counter-productive.

Agonists want interchange concerning identities that is passionate. On the other hand, however, the point of this interchange is a conversion of attitudes: more receptive and respectful to otherness. There is a certain paradox in this stress on identity-dispute. For ‘if identities themselves are highlighted, exchange is more likely to freeze identities than convert them’ (Dryzek, 2005: 221). Confrontational strategies and adversarial acts between identities, instead of having an integrating function (as agonists claim), run the risk of an ‘existential entrenchment by closing up on themselves in an effort to defend their views, values and ways of life’ especially, as Kalyvas points out, ‘when they are confronted with more powerful identities’ (Kalyvas, 2009: 34). By stressing fundamental differences social groups might better realise what they do not share with others in terms of basic values (Kalyvas, 2009: 34; Schaap, 2007: 67 ff.). So the sense that human relationships are frail and that the agonal spirit might have disintegrative effects is lacking (Breen, 2009: 142).

John Forester provides some evidence for this from dispute resolution practices in the face of value-based disputes (Forester, 2009). What is clear from all the different cases that he discusses is that interactions tend to become manageable when the focus is not on the expression of core values and critical assessment thereof, but on specific needs of the parties. Whereas needs often can be reciprocally accepted or even reconciled, this is not the case with world views and identities. That is why successful mediators of messy identity-based disputes suggest an indirect approach to such conflicts (by listening to stories and acknowledge each other’s needs) instead of a confrontational approach: ‘We need to mine stories, not sharpen debates, and we need soft structures and safe processes that will enable less posturing, more revelation, more surprise’ (Forester, 2009: 71). This type of mutual recognition is very different from the vibrant and passionate exchange that agonists have in mind (Dryzek, 2005: 221).

So what is the mechanism behind the failure of the direct approach to identity conflicts? Forester provides some first clues. This failure has to do with the specific nature of identity-based disputes. These disputes concern value systems, cultural histories, religious traditions or ethnic memberships (Forester, 2009: 59). Such social attachments and commitments are intimately linked to who we are and how we understand ourselves. So when ‘threatened with the loss of cherished values, we feel morally compromised, betrayed, damaged, or sold out’ (2009: 81–82, 77).

To understand this threat on a deeper level, I think we have to turn to a certain conception of the human condition. People are depending for their self-understanding, both in a practical-evaluative sense and in a cognitive sense, on the recognition or misrecognition they receive from others. This insight has been quite extensively developed by theorists such as Axel Honneth and Charles Taylor (Honneth, 1995; Taylor, 1994). The crucial insight that these theorists have taken over from Hegel is what Charles Taylor refers to as the ‘principle of necessary embodiment’ (Taylor, 1979: 16–18, 1985: 85 ff). This principle and its relation to the intersubjective constitution of the self reveals a structural vulnerability that is hard to reconcile with the proposal to transform the multicultural city into a strife-filled agonistic arena.

The principle of necessary embodiment signifies, in short, that human thinking is necessarily embodied in a medium and that for this reason we need an ‘externality’ in order to make sense of ourselves and our place in the world. I cannot come to an understanding of myself by withdrawing into some ‘inner space’, isolated from the surrounding socio-cultural reality. Human understanding cannot be situated in some immaterial centre of consciousness, for it depends upon its embodiment in a relative externality, such as a language, cultural practices, societal institutions and the concrete reactions of others (Taylor, 1979, 1989: part 1).

The constitutive role of recognition for one’s sense of self is part and parcel of this anthropological dependence on external realities. It is for this reason that Taylor refers to the human condition as ‘dialogical’ and to the self as a ‘dialogical self’ (Taylor, 1991, 1994). The whole argument in favour of a ‘politics of recognition’ finds its basis in this fundamental insight (Honneth, 1992, 1995; Taylor, 1994).

Now if there is no inner citadel to retreat to with regard to the attitudes and judgements of others, this also is the case when these concern what is defining for the self such as basic values. This implies that reactions of others introduce a specific vulnerability, a vulnerability that agonism as a type of intercultural citizenship does not take sufficiently into account. For what is being discussed is not some distant societal problem, but one’s social attachments: the cultural traditions or value systems that one implicitly or explicitly identifies with. After all, the agonistic point is to make explicit the implicit antagonism that comes with a diversity of identities, the fact that these identities all imply some ‘constitutive outside’ which creates a certain latent tension. This looming hostility needs to be ‘channelled’ into the open in order to avoid violent conflict, almost like scream therapy. ³

If people were truly monological centres of rational self-control they would not be vulnerable to violent passions when confronted with this type of questioning. But we are open systems defined by relations with others. To deny this relational dependence, this condition of openness to being affected, ‘is at the core of ignorance of vulnerability’ (Gilson, 2011: 322, 310). Agonists are not completely unaware of the suffering that agonistic practice might involve. Connolly, for instance, admits that it might be difficult for individuals that their world view is challenged and contested. However, you have to ‘absorb the agony of having elements of your own faith called into question by others’. This ‘pain of agonism’ is simply part of acknowledging that your own identity is without any foundation (Connolly, 2005: 123, 125, original emphasis; Connolly, 1995: chapter 1).

However, this ‘pain’ or ‘agony’ can never be a fertile breeding ground for negotiating diversity in the daily contexts of our urban lives. If people’s world views and attachments are contested in contexts where they are not prepared for it, they might run out of words quickly. These attachments are like a final vocabulary: words that we end up with when pushed to justify our basic orientation in moral space, words behind which we cannot go. We cannot simply distance ourselves from these last words without distancing ourselves from what we are (Visker, 1999: 370–371). The dictum that one should refrain from talk about politics or religion when visiting friends acknowledges that some things are too important to discuss with those who might be ready to question and criticise them. In that sense there is a prudence hidden in some cultural practices.

Let me give an example in this regard. Jennifer Lee studied relationships between mostly Jewish and Korean merchants and their black customers in New York and Philadelphia. Although there had been points of conflict between poor black residents on the one hand and local Korean or Jewish merchants on the other, most of the time – despite ‘identity differences’ – civility prevailed in everyday life because most people involved ‘actively work to preserve it’ (Lee, 2002: 182). Despite media bias towards conflict and controversy, this meant that most merchant–customer interactions were ‘characterized by civility, routine, and the simple philosophy of business as usual’ (Lee, 2002: 186; cf. Valentine and Waite, 2010).

Now according to the politics of agonism, the deeper tensions should be brought to the surface. The modus vivendi must be destabilised and hidden power asymmetries exposed. However, in this case there is not a clear ‘majority’ suppressing a minority. The wisdom embodied in these practices of conflict avoidance is that human resilience is limited when faced with a ‘passionate’ verbal attack on one’s basic attachments and values. A final vocabulary is final because it is not founded on solid ground, as tree roots in the ground of one’s being: in fact, it depends on types of confirmation and acknowledgement, sometimes subtle as in a nod or a smile, sometimes explicit as in shared rituals.

Is agonism, then, simply too much to handle generally? Should we always refrain from critically discussing attachments or deeply held beliefs of others? Certainly not. First of all, if the expression of someone’s identity constitutes an explicit disrespect towards other citizens – present or not in a given micro-public – a critical response is appropriate and required. Conflict avoidance in these situations is wrong. For those on the receiving end of denigration, protest can be a way to restore a sense of self-respect (Boxill, 1976; Honneth, 1995: chapter 8). Furthermore, intergroup conflict had huge historical significance for minorities in situations of structural racist exclusion and marginalisation, as the civil rights movement clearly attests (Lee, 2002: 182). Contesting exclusivist interpretations of identity agonistically in such a situation is the right thing to do.

Second, the politics of agonism can be an appropriate strategy when applied to the public-political sphere, namely the sum of sites and institutions in which matters of public concern are debated and public opinion is formed including, but not limited to, typical institutions of government such as parliament and city councils. The political sphere in this sense is able to provide some protection to social identifications for the reason that the political role offers a ‘detour’, as Rudi Visker puts it, that makes the ‘traffic’ with our attachments both possible and bearable (Visker, 1999: 372). It is not the size of the interactional setting that is key to the difference with ordinary micro-publics – many functions of government are carried out in small groups of people – but the nature of the setting. The political role creates some distance towards those passions inside us that are stronger than ourselves, that we cannot completely control and that ‘have something to do with that about us – with our attachments – from which we derive our “selves”’ (Visker, 1999: 372).

Given the definition of the public-political sphere in terms of an orientation towards the res publica, land-use planning is an example of a political practice involving many stakeholders, from elected representatives to agencies of development and resident groups. Planning concerns the way public space is organised and structured, which involves physically arranging land uses to achieve certain objectives. This requires more than technical knowledge, most minimally a democratic deliberation concerning these objectives amongst the various stakeholders. Furthermore, given that a typical planning setting is characterised by significant power asymmetries and that the interests of the parties involved are often very different, the planning practice is almost by nature an agonistic one (Hillier, 2002: 253). Instead of ideal models of communication, what is often needed here are discursive practices that are open to agonistic struggle and resistant to totalising hegemonic ‘solutions’ in the name of ‘consensus’ (Hillier, 2002: 269, 2003; Pugh, 2005). To frame intractable planning disputes agonistically can contribute to meaningful engagement and progressive outcomes (Mouat et al., 2013; Sandercock, 2003: 159–166).

So although there is room for agonism, I take issue with the generalised version that is typical for its urban theoretical manifestation. Yet this tendency can also be found in agonistic literature more broadly. Some argue for agonism as ‘a quotidian politics ... which extends the terrain of political contestation to the everyday enactment of social practices and the routine reiteration of cultural representations’ (McClure, 1992: 123). The point here is not to restrict the politics of disturbance of identities to specific institutions or occasions, but to create ‘a strife-filled and competitive social milieu’ (Wingenbach, 2011: 83). ⁴ As Foucault – an important source of inspiration for agonism – already put it: ‘“agonism” between power relations and the intransitivity of freedom is a permanent political task in all social existence’ – it ‘cannot be reduced to the study of a series of institutions’ for ‘power relations are rooted in the system of social networks’ (Foucault, 1983: 223–224, italics added). Furthermore, Mouffe’s concept of ‘the political’ is not limited to specific sectors of society: it is an ontological dimension that pervades all human societies (Mouffe, 2005a: 9 ff.). Although the moment of antagonistic conflict is not constantly and everywhere expressed, and in that sense remains a momentary expression of the political, ‘it is impossible to define a priori the surfaces on which antagonisms will be constituted’ (Laclau and Mouffe, 2001: 179, 153, 192). In fact, ‘the agonistic struggle should take place at a multiplicity of levels’ (Mouffe and Miessen, 2012: 26, 25, 22). Radical democratic politics implies a broadening of the political domain: besides the traditional state institutions, the ‘new social movements’ (Laclau and Mouffe, 2001: 159–160) are part of this domain, ‘civil society’ (Laclau and Mouffe, 2001: 179), the ‘educational system’, ‘labour relations’ and many other sites of social relations (Laclau and Mouffe, 2001: 192, 181, 179 ff.).

It must be granted, however, that Mouffe is especially concerned with these new social movements and established political institutions and less so with the kind of micro-publics central to the work of Amin, Sandercock and others (Mouffe, 2013: chapter 4). In that sense the work of Connolly seems a more fitting source for these theorists, given that he explicitly argues for a type of agonistic citizenship, an ethos, within diverse micro-political practices of self-making (Connolly, 1995), whereas Mouffe is more focused on politics as a set of practices and institutions through which a political order is created (Mouffe, 2005a: chapter 2). She says ‘politics is about the constitution of a political community not something that takes place within it’ (Mouffe, quoted in Wenman, 2003: 183). Mouffe takes issue with Connolly for neglecting ‘the institutions and forms of power that need to be established in order to allow for a process of radicalizing democracy’ (Mouffe, 2013: 15). And given that Connolly’s focus on agonistic citizenship implies a radical inclusion of all participants in public and semi-public spaces, it implies a very broad interpretation of the political and politics. We all need to open up the adversarial channels to relieve strained relationships and this means that citizens have to accept fundamental challenges to their own deep commitments without provoking hostile response (Connolly, 1995, 2005)

Although it would be wrong to paint a portrait of citizens as defenceless inarticulate creatures at the mercy of verbal attack, it is just as wrong to glorify identity-disputes and to suppose that citizens are and should be prepared to enter such agonistic arenas on a regular basis. It is not just that this approach is disrespectful to ‘those who might chose a more passive, peaceful, and tranquil non-political life’ (Kalyvas, 2009: 34), it also ignores a more general human vulnerability and risks stalemate and fractionalisation as a result. I am not primarily concerned with ‘hurt feelings’ – these could be secondary to higher goals of justice – but these likely adverse effects on intergroup relations.

Difference-respect

This leaves us with the question of what the alternatives are for those banal encounters with difference, encounters that cannot be avoided in modern complex cities and that have ‘a decisive impact on racial and ethnic practices’ (Amin and Thrift, 2002: 292). This question has been insufficiently analysed by theories of multicultural citizenship in which a notion of citizenship-as-rights has been dominant. Discussions concerning ‘multicultural citizenship’ have been focused somewhat one-sidedly on the state and on the question if and to what extent it should accommodate specific minority practices and institutions. A different kind of multicultural citizenship has been neglected, namely in terms of the intercultural abilities and ethos that an increasingly diverse polity like the modern city presupposes.

I will present an outline of two less demanding modes of civility for this everyday dealing with urban diversity. The point here is not to come up with a fully developed account, but to suggest a viable alternative of intercultural civility. The first of these alternatives is slightly more ambitious than the second one that I will discuss in the next section. In this section I want to propose a formal recognition of difference, that is, a recognition of the value of social attachments, not for society or in general, but for the person or group involved. I call this type of recognition ‘difference-respect’. It is a formal type of recognition for it does not entail a positive evaluation of difference.

The moral demand to value culture positively or equally is sometimes argued for on the basis of the anthropological importance of recognition (cf. Honneth, 1997: 30–32). Charles Taylor, however, famously argued that such positive valuing on demand is incoherent and (paradoxically) disrespectful (Taylor, 1994: 61 ff). What is required according to Taylor is ‘hermeneutical openness’: the standards on the basis of which we value other cultural expressions ought to be taken as a contingent cultural background that is challenged in certain ways by different cultural standards that form the background of what we try to understand. This does not imply the relativistic idea that aesthetic, normative and descriptive truth claims have only local validity. For what one ought to cultivate is the sense that the other could be right about certain of those claims, even if at first sight they seem strange and meaningless (Taylor, 1994: 67).

This type of hermeneutical openness can be a productive aspect of intercultural civility but, again, it is not easy to achieve. We need to become informed about the cultural framework that forms the background of a particular cultural expression. Such demands placed on ordinary citizens seem formidable given the increasingly diverse nature of our modern day cities that contain a multiplicity of identities and subcultural variations of ‘common sense’ (Hannerz, 1992; Pile, 1999).

So the type of recognition of difference that seems more realistic for everyday negotiation of diversity is, I believe, difference-respect. This type of respect is not subject to Taylor’s critique, for what I acknowledge is the value of this tradition or ethnic belonging for you. What is recognised is the attachment, not what the other is attached to. And given that ethnic or cultural attachments are generally not the object of choice or the result of a social contract (Margalit, 1996: 140; Young, 1990: 46), this type of formal respect for attachments should not be confused with the traditional liberal respect for ‘autonomy’ (Van Leeuwen, 2007).

One might still wonder whether this approach risks stereotyping by taking a certain phenotype or attire or accent as a cue to ‘difference-respect’. Furthermore, given urban diversity in globalised cities what does it mean to have to treat all those present in the micro-publics of our daily lives with formal respect for their identity? Yet I think difference-respect can be morally relevant if it meets two desiderata: (1) it ought to be a response to existing identifications; and (2) the main focus ought to be on the negative formulation, namely in terms of avoiding offense by insensitive, denigrating or insulting expressions and actions rather than in terms of an affirmative interpretation that requires explicit recognition of difference.

Still, identities are not always a Big Issue in micro-publics. People in modern cities tend to become blasé, as Simmel argued, about all kinds of contrasts and differences for the reason that the overwhelming urban environment makes it humanly impossible to consciously take all these distinctions in, let alone be responsive to all of them (Simmel, 1903/1969). The urban blasé attitude, or the typical indifference of city-dwellers as Louis Wirth referred to it, is simply a way the open system defends itself against a situation of interaction-overload (Milgram, 1970; Wirth, 1938/1995). Hence, the tendency to be reserved, not consider everyone as a potential friend. Although difference-respect might be morally preferable to urban indifference, the latter is neither existentially avoidable nor at all times morally unacceptable. I want to reflect on indifference-to-difference as a moral minimum of intercultural civility. Hence in the next section, we are not so much considering ‘the good city’ (Amin, 2006) when it comes to intercultural civility as the ‘good-enough city’.

Side-by-side civility

In a recently published book Ash Amin makes some room for a ‘civility of indifference’, namely with respect to co-presence and mingling in the open spaces of the city (Amin, 2012: chapter 3). Furthermore, he somewhat backtracks (though implicitly) from his earlier agonistic model of intercultural encounter with regard to situated practices such as the workplace, for he now stresses the importance of trust and mutuality instead of agonistic dispute (2012: chapter 2). I want to make two points in relation to this shift. First, this change of course does not make my critical assessment any less relevant, for urban agonism is out there, not just in Amin’s earlier writings but also in that of others. Second, I want to argue that such a notion of civility is more practicable than the earlier agonism not just in the open public sphere, as Amin suggests, but also in micro-publics (cf. Van Leeuwen, 2010).

Intercultural citizenship seems to profit from certain generic aspects of city life that carry a negative quality, such as ‘blasé attitude’, ‘urban flânerie’ or the typical ‘indifference’ of city-dwellers. After all, the thick solidarities of rural Gemeinschaft are more likely to generate points of conflict, especially where strangers and deviant forms of life are concerned (Turner, 2000: 131, 142). A certain level of indifference thus seems to allow the possibility of personal freedom and a tolerant multicultural city.

Fran Tonkiss seems right in describing the atmosphere of urban anonymity as a potentially ethical atmosphere in which a minimal ethics with regard to co-citizens can be present (Tonkiss, 2003). That minimal ethics involves a relaxed attitude with respect to social diversity or eccentricity, and thereby contributes to a widening of the range, of the bandwidth, of acceptable social, cultural and ethnic differences. Such a wide bandwidth, which is typical of city life, implies not only that it is much harder to stand out as an urbanite in public space, but also that those who feel that they constantly and uncomfortably stand out in non-urban environments feel that they are accepted here, although this urban acceptance generally does not involve warm patterns of recognition. I call such minimal intercultural citizenship in the urban context ‘side-by-side civility’.

Side-by-side civility is based on a minimal recognition comparable to what Erving Goffman has described as ‘civil inattention’: a way of noticing others without showing specific interest in their particular characteristics (Goffman, 1963). This ‘sine qua non of city life’ as Lyn Lofland refers to it (Lofland, 1998: 30) should be contrasted with ignoring others by giving them the ‘nonperson’ treatment (Goffman, 1963: 83–84). Civil inattention, however, seems to rule out verbal interaction (Lofland, 1998: 30), while side-by-sideness does not. It involves a kind of benign neglect of difference, a casual way of dealing with social diversity, also in direct interactions with others.

The difference with a general concept of tolerance is that the so-called ‘objection component’ is missing. Toleration (from the Latin tolerare, to put up with), refers to the conditional acceptance of beliefs, actions or practices that one dislikes or disapproves of (Forst, 2012). Toleration involves a conjunction of acceptance and objection. As Preston King puts it: ‘an objection … enters into any case of tolerance’ (King, 1976: 44). Side-by-sideness entails a basic attitude towards the eccentric, the strange and the different that is nowhere near this internal struggle. Instead of a teeth-gritting toleration, there is a shoulder-shrugging acceptance. Although this type of civility might not be the most advanced manifestation of intercultural urban citizenship, given that it borders on indifference, I want to defend it as an acceptable moral minimum.

There are good reasons why the city is a welcoming place for ‘the other’ – for migrants, single people, homosexuals, feminists, artists, etc. The city is the place where peripheral groups can settle, where cultural dissidents and newcomers can feel accepted in their otherness (although cities, of course, also have their homophobic, racist and sexist practices). This is not despite, but thanks to side-by-side acceptance.

Most theories of agonism, however, reject urban indifference-to-difference as an acceptable type of citizenship. Mouffe argues that the politics of agonism ‘does not entail condoning ideas that we oppose or being indifferent to standpoints that we disagree with’ (Mouffe, 2000: 102). Connolly insists that ‘agonistic respect’ affirms a more ambiguous relation of strife between identities over ‘a passive letting the other be’ (Connolly, 1993: 382). Sandercock claims we have to go ‘beyond the model of “indifference to difference”’ for without intercultural exchange social conflicts will remain and one culture will simply dominate another (Sandercock, 2003: 145, 87–88). Wood and Landry express similar concerns. Conflict is to be preferred above ‘mutual indifference’ for it is a sign that ‘the city is vibrant and is attempting to make a future through interaction and dealing with difference’ (Wood and Landry, 2008: 286; Mouffe, 2000: 34). They are suspicious of a city without signs of inter-communal strife: ‘Our conclusion is that even though a city may not outwardly display any signs of ethnic tension or antipathy, a passive state of “benign indifference” is not a sufficient or desirable state’ (Wood and Landry 2008: 313).

Now there are some genuine concerns here. Let me first of all draw a distinction between a micro-politics of avoidance and benign indifference-to-difference. Avoidance of ethno-cultural others might indeed breed an attitude of ‘suspicion and antagonism’ (Wood and Landry, 2008: 313), but this is very different from a benign urban indifference. Avoiding what you do not want to be close to or interact with implies the exact opposite of indifference-to-difference. Moreover, the core idea of civility is treating others as moral equals and this does not allow avoiding people on the basis of aversion with regard to ethnic, cultural, religious or gender differences. In that sense, as Boyd puts it, sometimes civility implies ‘a willingness to look past differences’ (Boyd, 2006: 867).

Let us think for a moment of the work place. If I work with people from other ethnic backgrounds, social classes and religious affiliations, I might not be interested in or focused on these particular facts about people in that context. We just might get along, work and eat together, without feeling the need to bring these particular differences to the fore and critically discuss them (agonism), be open to them (Taylor) or even explicitly acknowledge the fact that these particulars might be important to my co-workers (difference-respect). We work side-by-side as it were: interacting with each other to be sure, but not with explicit references to our deepest commitments and their differences. ⁵

This type of mild indifference-to-difference seems a morally acceptable way of dealing with urban diversity, not just in the open urban spaces (e.g. streets, parks, squares) but also in micro-publics. It is a mode of living with difference, of accommodating it, perhaps not the most morally desirable way but justifiable as a baseline of living with diversity.

We do, however, have to qualify this side-by-side civility a bit more. Besides the fact that it should not be confused with active avoidance of others, it ought not to imply or involve an indifference to basic needs of others, to their fate, the kind of indifference that the German journalist Günter Wallraff was confronted with many times in his disguise as ‘Ali’ (Wallraff, 1988). That type of indifference must be firmly rejected for the reason that it entails a violation of basic respect and care

So being difference-indifferent should not be confused with a general lack of civic concern. It constitutes an acceptable way of accommodating diversity and a practicable way for it is in tune with the overwhelming character and complexity of modern cities. Moreover, sometimes such indifference might be preferable to the attempt to actively recognise difference or bring it up as a conversation piece in order to ‘channel antagonistic passions’. Especially minorities do not always want to be reminded of their ‘difference’ from the rest of society, even if this is a well-meant attempt to ‘destabilise’ a dominant cultural centre.

I’m not arguing for a naive ‘difference-blind’ social order, for side-by-sideness neither implies literally not noticing or registering difference, nor the absence of explicit regimes of minority accommodation on the political-institutional level (Van Leeuwen, 2010: 639–640; Tonkiss, 2003: 299–300). However, urban differences in everyday encounters will often become part of a self-evident background of daily routines, especially in globalised cities of the modern world. Besides Simmel’s point concerning mental and behavioural adaptations as a protection against overload, another more banal part of a genealogy of indifference to social difference is that one simply gets used to it.

Indifference has a bad reputation, but it is often a lack of casual indifference-to-difference that causes violent conflict (Bailey, 1996). And Mouffe’s claim that identity makes a constant definition of ‘out-groups’ necessary strikes me as a dramatisation. First, people have multiple affiliations and not all of those affiliations are active in every context (Scheffler, 2007). Second, although ethno-cultural identifications are inevitably based on us–them distinctions, this ‘other’ might be a vague and unspecific reference (Abizadeh, 2005: 57–58; Fritsch, 2008: 181 ff). Third, us–them distinctions can be based ‘on cooperation and mutual acknowledgement’ (Eriksen, 1993: 28, 116; Fritsch, 2008: 185). In fact, according to milder versions of agonism, difference might even be cared for as a positive sign of the inexhaustible possibilities that human life entails (Bris, 2011).

Conclusion

This paper has questioned the idea that agonism as a modus operandi in ordinary micro-publics is fit for the purpose of accommodating everyday diversity. The adversarial approach to identities and basic values in mundane places such as the factory hall, the shop floor, the classroom or the sports club might be a noble ideal as far as stimulating a broad intellectual, democratic culture is concerned. However, given the dialogical constitution of the self, identities are vulnerable to attempts by others at testing and critical questioning. The resulting injuries are unlikely to be a fertile breeding ground for a peaceful ‘intercultural city’. They are more likely to exacerbate intergroup tensions.

The proposed alternative is not a conception of civility based on thick cultural community or deliberative reason. We do not have to choose between agonism on the one hand and communitarian or rationalistic notions of social harmony and consensus on the other. What these conceptions of civility have in common is a denial of the importance and nature of social attachments: agonism by taking difference as an invitation to critical confrontation, and communitarianism and liberal rationalism, respectively, by celebrating ‘common’ values or by treating attachments in terms of ‘individual choice’.

In order to formulate a viable, practicable alternative I have proposed a conception of intercultural civility that is able to be responsive to difference, without becoming overburdened by demands to value it positively or be ‘open’ to it and really ‘understand’ it. I have referred to this conception as ‘difference-respect’: a formal, non-evaluative recognition of social attachments. In some situations, however, diversity is accommodated in a mode of living together that is supported by a characteristic social distance of urban culture, what I refer to as side-by-side civility. There is a certain strength in such urban weak ties, a strength that is underestimated both by the language of community and of passionate exchange, a strength that can be expressed in terms of the silent ability to cope with social difference. Indifference in that sense is, as Tonkiss puts it, ‘one way in which differences are lived in everyday social spaces’ (Tonkiss, 2003: 300). Perhaps this is the wisdom of the urban crowd.