With the end of the Cold War, the hope emerged that the ideas of liberalism would spread globally. The concept of equal freedom based on human dignity implies a universal dimension, according to which social orders should enable individuals to live a self-determined life across ethnic, cultural and religious boundaries in (legal) alignment with the general. In recent times, the fundamental ideas of liberalism have been massively criticized, not least in view of a globalization that is dominated in particular by economics, which shortened universal perspectives to freedom of world trade merely and led to both occasional intensification of already existing inequalities and new conflicts. The principles of universality and freedom were criticized as Western and particular, because of their origin in the European Enlightenment. Other cultural identities were contrasted with them. This applies not only to non-Western and/or non-liberal concepts of social order, but also to given or chosen orientations with regard to Iifestyle, sexuality or religion. Digital communication has made it possible for authoritarian populist movements to rise in the name of cultural, ethnic or religious demarcations, but also for particular and diverse group identities to force their singularity in the name of self-determination. At the same time, they demand social respect and even special political or economic rights. If the idea of the common is reduced to the self-understanding of cultural group identities, a new form of the struggle for recognition emerges - which old liberalism wanted to pacify in vain. This raises the question again of a universal concept of equal freedom that can be mediated by the individuality of cultural identities-and vice versa. According to the thesis of this paper participation and recognition are more likely to succeed if there is openness on both sides to transcend supposed boundaries. If religion behaves critically towards such fixations and becomes sensitive to ambivalence, it can contribute to such openness. For it enables a second, different view of universal concepts and individual identity.

Enthalten in:
Zeitschrift für Evangelische Ethik; 2021/3 Kommentare, Studien, Berichte, Dokumentationen, Diskussionen, Rezensionen, Bibliographie (2021)

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Serie / Reihe: Zeitschrift für Evangelische Ethik

Personen: Dierken, Jörg

Schlagwörter: Freiheit Partizipation Universalismus Gemeinwohl Respekt Gleichheit Liberalismus Kulturalismus