LETTER | Let’s seek the middle ground

LETTER | Here’s a plea to our politicians: please consider conciliatory democracy, as promoted by Martin Ebeling (Conciliatory Democracy, Palgrave Macmillan 2017).

How ought we react to persistent political disagreement, asks Martin Ebeling, who holds a PhD in Philosophy from Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany.

In response to the question, he proposes “a new conception of democracy” which he calls “conciliatory democracy”.

Ebeling contends that we ought to pursue epistemic conciliation, the ideal of which is to find a middle ground to replace the ideals of consensus and of a compromise of interest which is at the centre of much democratic theory today.

Ebeling says that if we and our “representatives leave behind a manipulative rhetoric designed to divide rather than to convince and engage in sincere public deliberations about the issues at stake in decision-making”, there comes a point where we ought to regard others as equally informed and our disagreement as “rational and reasonable”.

In the circumstances, he says further, the best bet at getting it right is “to seek a middle ground”.

Politics can be conciliatory. It does not have to be toxic and continue to be so. Or be about persistent political disagreements.

If differences and disagreements can’t bring all parties to be part of a unity government, it does not mean that opposing political parties can’t find a middle ground.

Let’s seek that middle ground.

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