VIA Num. 3 / April'07

Editorial

Ferran Sáez

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Leading a life

Charles Taylor

The philosophy and theory of morals very often reduce opting for justice and good to a single principle. On other occasions, however, they underline the impossibility of arbitrating between various categories of "good". The basis of this debate is highly complex and difficult to clarify. Normally we are faced with a diversity of “goods” and often find that overall judgements have been made on certain behaviour when there is more than one factor in play. But, how can we choose between different kinds of "good"? According to Charles Taylor, one of the most representative contemporary exponents of “Communitarism”, through the feeling of unity and integrity of their own lives (the consideration of life as a whole, as a process, as a path that is made and not as a sum of episodes, crossroads or isolated decisions), people can find a common measure to justify their decisions. It is not so much a question of the relative importance of what is good or of moral decisions, but rather the idea of how these are mutually adapted to the total and global nature of a life. Because, as the author says, "our task does not simply consist of carrying out isolated acts, each one of which is just, but of living a life, something that involves being and becoming a specific kind of human being." In other words, it's not so much a question of classifying what is good rather than ensuring that these different kinds of "good" match each other, as well as making them complementary through values.

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Relativism versus freedom

Valentí Puig

According to the author, the start of the 21st century can be defined as a period of maximum relativist impregnation. According to Valentí Puig hypermodern times, as defined by the post-modern philosopher Gilles Lipovetsky, correspond to an immoderate relativism and a growing lack of devotion to a sense of duty, commitment and responsibility, which have been replaced by a kind of ethical zapping, contextualised and essentially relativistic. From a position and attitude of confrontation with the dominant relativism in Europe, the author takes sides with a laic and anti-relativistic stance that openly defends, without inhibitions, the contributions of the West. But at certain latitudes, it must be said, the West's convergence between relativism and self-censorship is an evident fact today: relativism, also encouraged by the confusion between pluralism and multiculturalism, now maintains that, because something is from the West, it has directly negative connotations. A consequence of all this, proposed by the text, is that a Europe without faith in its own principles and values is unlikely to be in any condition to draw up an authentic Constitution.

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Turkey and the UE: Adhesion process and reforms. Building a common project

Senén Florensa

To enlarge or not with the integration of Turkey is undoubtedly one of the most important debates still raging today in the European Union and one of the biggest challenges faced by member states over the next few years. At a time when European institutions, now celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, are struggling to find a way to push the common project forward again and give it a new lease of life, the Turkish question certainly does not go unnoticed. In this article, the Managing Director of the European Institute of the Mediterranean starts off with some of the conclusions reached at the seventh EU-Turkey Conference, actually held in Barcelona last January, to encourage global reflection on the main issues being debated with regard to this question. It is therefore not a question putting forward a solid and decided argument either for or against Turkey joining, although the article openly admits the expediency of this new step and lists the advantages that it would bring, but rather of reviewing the pitfalls or issues that are present in a complex negotiation with multiple nuances. In this respect, the text gets to grips with different dimensions, such as culture, religion and the dimension of values, as well as geo-strategy, institutions, democracy and the Mediterranean dimension. These being some of the aspects that have had most influence on perceptions in the current political debate.

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The "values" of the vote

Agustí Bosch

Do citizens' values have a definitive effect on their final voting decision in electoral processes? Has the so-called “change in values from materialism to post-materialism” (Inglehart) led to any significant changes in the electoral preferences of citizens in the west, or do those values that we might call "classic" continue to play a decisive and dominant role in this respect? How does all this translate to and take shape in the case of Catalonia? The author tackles these and other questions in a text that, in addition to an overall analysis of the phenomenon, also provides a series of data and analysis that allow us to form a diagnosis, albeit preliminary, of this correlation between values (ideological, religious and post-materialistic) and votes, especially in Catalonia. One of the conclusions reached by Professor Bosch's analysis is that, while Catalan voters confirm that the influence of classic values, such as ideological self-location, on their votes has been somewhat eroded, this erosion does not necessarily mean that they have disappeared. At the same time, it must also be taken into account that new mechanisms for deciding votes are replacing structural variables, including citizens' values, with other variables of a more specifically contextual nature.

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Democratic change, agening and dependence

Víctor Pérez-Díaz

In this article, an adaptation and translation from one of the talks given at the seminar "Demographic Change and the Welfare State", organised by the Centre d’Estudis Jordi Pujol, sociologist Víctor Pérez-Díaz puts forward some of the most specific challenges facing a number of current socio-demographic trends. The author starts off with projections and prospective data, such as those deriving from various analyses suggesting new life expectancies, with the human species taking six times longer to mature and the possibility of living to be a hundred in good conditions. Consequently, the expectations we must work with are those of enjoying good health for thirty years after we retire. What will these people do during this time with the resources at their disposal? And, in particular, how will we be able to support an increasingly larger proportion of elderly people in the population? In other words, will there be the resources, in terms of finance, education and policy relations, to allow the elderly to achieve a certain autonomy and to openly express their demands? As well as the elderly generating, for example, their own support services, such as the network of associations and voluntary work-in groups of elderly in the USA. Or will there still be a tendency, in Europe's case, and more specifically in the European Union, to depend on ones own family networks? Another question asked by the author is what the electoral weight of a large group of elderly will be like, given that they tend towards pragmatism and political moderation.

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The french presidential elections: The Ségolène Royal case

Gérard Grumberg

This year's French presidential elections have generated a great deal of expectation and interest throughout Europe. France must steadfastly face up to a number of changes and transformations, both social and economic, that will more than likely lead to reforms in one of the pillars of the Fifth Republic. On the other hand, in the wake of the negative result of the referendum on the European Constitution and the impasse in which the community project currently finds itself, precisely at the time when the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome is being celebrated, France has an undeniable responsibility and a key role to play in reactivating optimism and confidence in Europe as a political project. In this respect, it is hardly surprising that the European question and the need to rewrite another briefer, more intelligible and more effective constitutional text has been one of the points of debate in a presidential campaign that has divided all parties. Ultimately, and through their three main contenders, these elections also embody a generational shift in French politics, confirmed by the announcement of Chirac's definitive retirement. The right-wing candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, is standing on a programme of liberal trends and of the three probably represents the clearest break with tradition. The centre candidate, François Bayrou, who in the previous elections poled no more than 7% of the vote, has found his place among the grands candidats. And, finally, for the first time, a woman is in a position to reach the Elysée, the socialist candidate Ségolène Royal. In fact, Gérard Grunberg focuses his analysis on an evaluation of Royal's campaign, which started out with a great hue and cry and in a most admirable way, but which, during the pre-campaign and the campaign period, has gradually lost it originality and initial capacity to seduce.

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Consideration of Catalonia by Dionisio Ridruejo

Jordi Amat

Jordi Amat's article focuses on the evolution of the intellectual and political figure of Dionisio Ridruejo, from his initial Falangist sympathies to social democracy and, more specifically, to his conception and valuing of Catalan culture and of the relations and dialogue between Catalonia and Spain, which he ended up understanding and defending as a true multi-national reality, both for cultural and economic reasons. The biography of Ridruejo, an extraordinary example of the complexity that characterises 20th century Spanish intellectual history, is also a story of ideological rectification and transformation as a result of personal evolution, with its origins in a deep loyalty to oneself, a commitment to knowledge, strong ethical demands and incorruptible intellectual honesty. The publication of an article of these characteristics is coherent with the aim, already stated in VIA 01, to reserve a space for salvaging some of the episodes and figures that have played a part, in either a leading or more modest role, in Catalonia’s contemporary political, intellectual and cultural history.

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The advantages and drawbacks of secularisation

Jean-Louis Schlegel

In this text the author, who has recently coordinated and promoted a monographic edition of the magazine Esprit (March/April 2007) about the new "religious effervescence" in the world, tackles one of the issues that have been the object of his attention and analysis: the secularisation or what, in the words of Marcel Gauchet although with different nuances, has been called religion’s "coming out" in western societies. Beyond this debate, which serves as the backbone to the article as a whole, Schlegel also tackles other issues, such as historically institutionalised religions' loss of influence in quantitative and qualitative terms, an undeniable consequence of the process of the separation between church and state brought about by modernity; the displacement of religion in private life, which he calls “invisible religion”, and the pluralisation of religion resulting from the upsurge of new religiousness or the presence of imported religions, such as Islam, entering into competition with traditional religions. This is a question that is also at the roots of a process and dynamism that is completely different from the previous situation, also transforming relations between religion and politics. This article is an adaptation and extension of the speech given by the same author as part of the seminar "Theologies of Power", held at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània in Barcelona.

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Immigration and religious diversity in Catalonia

Maria del Mar Griera

Today, religion forms an inescapable part of the political agenda in the vast majority of western countries and democracies. Catalonia is no exception to this tendency to place the issue of religion in the centre of the socio-political debate, basing its raison d'être in a number of phenomena that, over the last few years, have also been amplified by the media treatment, in turn selective and imbalanced, when dealing with these issues and the challenges that they present. This is particularly evident with regard to Islam. While there is an inflationist tendency in our societies, when facing the new challenges that might be entailed by, for example, the presence of a large Muslim community, the same attention or emphasis is not given to the even more numerous presence of Evangelical communities, also new and containing a variety of styles. The new leading role accorded to religious language in international affairs, the increase in initiatives to encourage inter-religious dialogue, many of which are also being promoted from the political sphere, plus the increase in international migrations and the resulting consequences on a cultural and religious level. These are just some of the issues taken on by the author. Maria del Mar Griera i Llonch is a sociologist of religions and her analysis pays particular attention to how this phenomenon is evolving in the light of increasing religious plurality and the need to manage this plurality in Catalonia. She also analyses its relationship (from the emergence of religious plurality) with the ideals of modernity and the indisputable reality of growing secularisation in democratic societies.

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Relations between faith and European Union member States

Àlex Seglers

In this article, the author reviews the different kinds of relationship between churches and religious faiths with state and public administrations inside the European Union. The different models for managing religious pluralism, such as state churches, cooperative laicisation and strict laicisation, as well as the specific features of the relationship between religion and public power, are the result of the traditions and evolution of each country and of the relationships between faiths and the state as democracy has gradually become established. The author also looks at how religious pluralism has been dealt with over the last few years by European institutions. Beyond the proposals of the text of the Constitution, which emphasised equal treatment for faiths on the part of community bodies, this is concentrated in the wording of the different recommendations issued by other European institutions, such as the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, regarding the relationship between religion and democracy. Finally, Professor Àlex Seglers highlights the challenge facing member states in terms of the need to balance church cooperation policies in line with the traditions of each member state and the right of citizens to religious freedom; a freedom that they must be able to exercise without discrimination, as stated by the European Court of Human Rights on a number of occasions.

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The prepolitical foundations of democracies

Francesc Torralba

The well-known intellectual confrontation between the philosopher Jürgen Habermas and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, before he was Pope Benedict XVI, which took place on the 19th of January 2004 and even achieved a certain media coverage, is the author’s starting point for an investigation of a complex and essential question: that of the pre-political basis of democracy, something that Habermas has himself also covered extensively in a recent work entitled Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion (Between Naturalism and Religion). Among others, one of the conclusions reached through the debate between the German philosopher and the German theologian is that, very probably, one of the problems of current day democratic societies lies in the fact that a number of the concepts and values that are fundamental for the very stability of democracy have become meaningless. This is something that also leads to a growing lack of motivation in terms of a firm commitment to the common good and the general interest among laic, post-metaphysical, individualistic and relativistic citizens. Can religion play a role, also as a motivating force, in this context of post-secularised democratic societies, without calling into doubt the essential criteria of advanced modernity?

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Faith and ethics in an interdependent world

Steven C. Rockefeller

Globalisation is a fact and an undeniable reality at many levels and in many diverse spheres - economic, technological, ecological, etc. However, is it also the case at a moral and spiritual level? Undoubtedly this is not so. Furthermore, are global ethics possible, or in any case necessary or desirable? The author gets to grips with these and other questions in an essay that justifies and argues that ethics of a planetary nature are not only an evolutionary possibility but also a social, political and ecological need. Without resorting to naive or simply well-meaning diagnoses, the author defends the position that, in spite of cultural differences, shared ethical values are not necessarily alien in an evolving world and in a world where pluralism, today, is an undeniable fact. Professor Steven C. Rockefeller tackles these questions based on the considerations and categories employed by some of the points of reference in pragmatic North American thought, such as John Dewey and William James.

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