Rethinking of the Significance of Passions in Political Education: A Focus on Chantal Mouffe's “Agonistic Democracy”

Abstract

This paper discusses the significance of passions in political education through the consideration of Chantal Mouffe's agonistic democracy. Mouffe points out the role of the passions that facilitate organizing political identities, and presents the risks of eliminating passions. The liberal interpretation of democracy intends to eliminate passions that prevent people achieving a rational consensus. On the other hand, the emphasis on rationality makes it easy for right-wing populism to mobilize people's passions. In other words, the elimination of passions creates a situation in which dialogue with other political identities is difficult: this is the contradiction of the liberal interpretation of democracy. To avoid this, Mouffe suggests channels that express collective passions as democratic designs to disarm antagonistic passions. Mouffe's democratic theory indicates the risk of a too optimistic understanding of the passions in political education which takes deliberative approaches. Also, this result suggests the necessity of reconsidering the position of passions in the political education. From the perspective of Mouffe's agonistic democracy, the role of political education should be regarded as not elimination of passions but sublimation of antagonistic passions. To achieve this sublimation, we should facilitate participation in democratic practices. However, sublimation of antagonistic passions through democratic institutions is not always successful. If antagonistic passions are expressed in destructive forms, what should we do? This paper touches only briefly on this point. Further studies are needed in order to contribute to this issue.