Dear Readers, Supporters and Donors,
First, I'd like to encourage you to click here and give in our 2007/8 "Think Long Term" campaign. We want to get to 1,500 supporters, and are now at 1,000 for the last 12 months. You can read why people are joining and supporting here. (Some of you are having technical trouble with our system ... apologies, and I hope we have ironed things out now).
Why give? Today's "Quote of the Day", selected as usual by our deputy editor David Hayes, provides a clue, I think: "Relativism of authority does not establish the authority of relativism; it opens reason to new claimants", Gillian Rose (UK Philosopher, died 1995).
Her observation is that all forms of authority are arbitrary, in the sense that they cannot be justified by reference to some further end or goal - authority is the bedrock. But if authority is arbitrary, how do we adjudicate between competing authorities? For example, how do we adjudicate competing demands of market and religion, of law and friendship, of ethnicity and rights? The temptation of relativism is to say that we do not broker---we give up judgement. Gillian Rose is reminding us is that there is a view of reason that allows us to bring new claims into the fold of conversation.
This is a view of our common social creation that requires knowledge, sympathy, the ability to stand by subtle distinctions and specific circumstances. This is what openDemocracy at its best achieves.
Please give to our campaign - you will be helping to maintain openDemocracy's independence, and to preserve the kind of space Gillian Rose was referring to, one where relative authorities can claim our reason.
Many thanks,
Tony Curzon Price
If you cannot see links in this mail, please visit http://www.opendemocracy.net/about/donate to give
