Abstract
Democracy needs a radical rethinking. This paper makes some proposals for a new way of conceiving a democratic world. At first, it is necessary to send back citizens to their own living, thus sexuate, being. This will allow them to be responsible for their own life, that of other living beings, and to care about the climatic and sociocultural environment needed for their development. Because of their reduction to neuter, in fact nonexisting individuals, citizens do not behave as real persons but as cogs in a global mechanism of which they maintain the running towards a gradual robotization of the world. To escape such a destiny, citizens, as long as they remain alive, can resort to their desire without contenting themselves with the satisfaction of needs. Desire longs for the beyond; thus, it compels to transcend oneself and is a driving force of development. Desire also brings people to each other and is the most important agent in the formation of a democratic community. It must take over from the natural sap at the individual and collective levels. In order that desire could act in this way, the current political language, in general too abstract and technical, must be modified, as well as the singularity of the individual and the relationship in difference, beginning with natural difference, must be preserved from the more abstract commitments of a national end even larger community.
Similar content being viewed by others
Selected Bibliography
Irigaray, L. (1993). Je, tu, nous. Transl. Alison Martin. Routledge. [Orig. Je, tu, nous, 1990]
Irigaray, L. (1994). Thinking the Difference. Transl. Karin Montin. Continuum and Routledge. [Orig. Le temps de la différence, 1989]
Irigaray, L. (2000). Democracy Begins between Two. Transl. Kirsteen Anderson. Continuum. [Orig. La democazia comincia a due, 1994]
Irigaray, L. (2003). Luce Irigaray: Key Writings. Continuum.
Irigaray, L. (2007a). Oltre i propri confini. Baldini Castoldi Dalai.
Irigaray, L. (2007b). La démocratie ne peut se passer d’une culture de la différence. Libido. Sexes, genres et dominations. Illusio, 17–28.
Irigaray, L. (2013). Between myth and history: The tragedy of Antigone. In: In the Beginning, She Was. Bloomsbury. [First published in Interrogating Antigone in Postmodern Philosophy and Criticism, ed. by S. E. Wilmer and Audrone Žukaiskaitė, Oxford / New York: Oxford University Press, 2010]
Irigaray, L., & Marder, M. (2016). Through Vegetal Being. Columbia University Press.
Irigaray, L. (2019). Sharing the Fire. Palgrave Macmillan.
Irigaray, L. (2021). A New Culture of Energy: Beyond East and West. Transl. Stephen Seely, Stephen Pluháček and Antonia Pont. Columbia University Press. [Orig. Una nuova cultura dell’energia, 2011]
Irigaray, L. (Ed.) (2022). Challenging a Fictitious Neutrality. Palgrave Macmillan.
Simondon, G. (1989). Individuation psychique et collective. Aubier Montaigne (L’invention philosophique).
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Emily Holmes for her careful rereading of my English version of this text.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Irigaray, L. Dreaming of a Truly Democratic World. SOPHIA 61, 105–115 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-022-00913-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-022-00913-4