Charles Blattberg

How might we mend the world? Charles Blattberg suggests a 'new patriotism', one that reconciles conflict through a form of dialogue that prioritizes conversation over negotiation and the common good over victory. This patriotism can be global as well as local, left as well as right. Blattberg's is a genuinely original philosophical voice. The essays collected here discuss how to re-conceive the political spectrum, where 'deliberative democrats' go wrong, why human rights language is tragically counterproductive, how nationalism is not really secular, how many nations should share a single state, a new approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and why Canada might have something to teach about the 'war on terror'. We also learn about the right way to deny a role to principles in ethics, how to distinguish between the good and the beautiful, the way humour works, the rabbinic nature of modernism, the difference between good, bad, great, and evil, why Plato's dialogues are not really dialogues, and why most philosophers are actually artists.

How might we mend the world? Charles Blattberg suggests a 'new patriotism', one that reconciles conflict through a form of dialogue that prioritizes conversation over negotiation and the common good over victory. This patriotism can be global as well as local, left as well as right. Blattberg's is a genuinely original philosophical voice. The essays collected here discuss how to re-conceive the political spectrum, where 'deliberative deomocrats' go wrong, why human rights language is tragically counterproductive, how nationalism is not really secular, how many nations should share a single state, a new approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and why Canada might have something to teach about the 'war on terror'. We also learn about the right way to deny a role to principles in ethics, how to distinguish between the good and the beautiful, the way humor works, the rabbinic nature of modernism, the difference between good, bad, great, and evil, why Plato's dialogues are not really dialogues, and why most philosophers are actually artists.

A proposal for renewed political dialogue in Canada that would attempt to realise the common good by giving significant place to conversation as a means of reconciling our conflicts.

The moral and political philosophy of pluralism has become increasingly influential. To pluralists, when values genuinely conflict we should aim to strike an appropriate balance or trade-off between them, though this means accepting that compromise will be inevitable. Politics, as a result, appears as a thoroughly tragic affair. Drawing on a 'hermeneutical' conception of interpretation, the author develops an original account of practical reasoning, one which assumes that, though making compromises in the face of conflicts is indeed often unavoidable, there are times when reconciliation, as distinct from compromise, is feasible. For this to be so, however, citizens must strive to converse - and not just negotiate - with each other, thus fulfilling the good that is at the heart of their shared political community. This is the central message of the patriotic alternative to pluralist politics that the author defends here.