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DRAFT Reviving the Social Compact DRAFT Explorations in Contemporary Social-Political Philosophy (ECSPP) Series Editors: Naomi Zack (University of Oregon) and Laurie Shrage (Florida International University) As our world continues to be buffeted by extreme changes in society and politics, philoso- phers can help navigate these disruptions. Rowman & Littlefield’s ECSPP series books are intended for supplementary classroom use in intermediate to advanced college-level courses to introduce philosophy students and scholars in related fields to the latest re- search in social-political philosophy. This philosophical series has multidisciplinary appli- cations and the potential to reach a broad audience of students, scholars, and general readers. 1. Beyond Blood Oil: Philosophy, Policy, and the Future, by Leif Wenar, Anna Stilz, Michael Blake, Christopher Kutz, Aaron James, and Nazrin Mehdiyeva, 2018 2. Reviving the Social Compact: Inclusive Citizenship in an Age of Extreme Politics, by Naomi Zack, 2018 DRAFT Reviving the Social Compact Inclusive Citizenship in an Age of Extreme Politics Naomi Zack Foreword by Ruth Sample ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD Lanham • Boulder • New York • London DRAFT Published by Rowman & Littlefield A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB, United Kingdom Copyright © 2018 by Rowman & Littlefield All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data TO COME TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America DRAFT To Alex, Bradford, Jessica, Coco, and Winnie DRAFT DRAFT If a long series of abuses, lies, and tricks, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people so that they can’t help feeling what they are oppressed by and seeing where they are going, it’s not surprising that they should then rouse themselves and try to put the ruling power into hands that will achieve for them the purposes for which govern- ment was at first established. —John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 1689, Chap 19, S 225 The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people. —John Adams, to Hezekiah Niles, 13 February 1818 Sometimes when you win, you really lose, and sometimes when you lose, you really win, and sometimes when you win or lose, you actually tie, and sometimes when you tie, you actually win or lose. Winning or losing is all one organic mechanism, from which one extracts what one needs. —Gloria Clemente: Rosie Perez, “White Men Can’t Jump” (1992) IBDb, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105812/characters/nm0001609 I fell asleep and had a dream that a king was liquidated by a group of kind faces. —Maquita Donyel Irvin, #Black Lives Matter https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/black-lives-matter?page=2 DRAFT DRAFT Contents Foreword xi Ruth Sample Preface and Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 Part I: Politics, Race, Class, and Feminism 9 1 Turbocharged Politics 11 2 The Junction of Race 27 3 The Political Creation of Class 43 4 The Amazing Success of Feminism 59 Part II: The Need for the Social Compact 79 5 The Social Contract and the Social Compact 81 6 Natural Disaster in Society 97 7 Environmental Disaster 115 8 Homelessness and Monetization 131 9 Immigration and Expulsion 147 Conclusion: The Uncertainty and Duty of Inclusive Citizenship 167 ix DRAFT Foreword Ruth Sample Can citizenship in the era of Trump be saved? If our government has broken the social contract and no longer serves the interests of the people, can citizens have faith that they are better off with government than without it? What happens when our government promises fair and equal treatment, but it has become obvious (and sometimes visible through camera-phone video) that people of color, immigrants, women, and poor people are not truly equal citizens? Is it time to shift our focus from the idea of a social contract— between the government and citizens—to the idea of a social compact— direct interaction and agreement among citizens and social institutions for the common good? Naomi Zack answers that, yes, we must recommit to the fundamental duty of citizenship, going beyond just political participation and voting. Good citizenship will require that we create institutions, structures, and prac- tices that advance the common good even when our government and political system will not or cannot. It also requires that we push for a humane culture that is truly inclusive and treats all with true equal concern and respect—not simply in the formal legal sense but in actual practice. If the government cannot or will not undermine racism and gender discrimination, we must do it ourselves. If the government cannot wipe out poverty and homelessness, we must move our engagement to the local level and do it ourselves. The social contract may be broken, but the social compact is still here, pushed underground, waiting to be revitalized. This is a timely and surprisingly optimistic manifesto by a philosopher ideally situated to write one. Professor Naomi Zack has been a leading synthesizer of philosophical questions regarding race, class, gender, and more recently ethics for disaster and political philosophy. Now we find our- selves in a series of disasters—political, environmental, social—with no xi xii Foreword DRAFT clear solution forthcoming from our government. Our new, intensified poli- tics is driven by a series of malignant forces, some external to politics, some internal to it. These forces “turbocharge” or “supercharge” our political sys- tem, robbing it of its ability to effectively respond to the needs of the people. The result to date has been oppositional, irrational, and unpredictable out- comes for voters and citizens. We go from President Obama to President Trump. Elections may be regime changes, but we cannot rely on any change from politics to last; it will soon be supplanted by a swing in the other direction. The solution, Zack argues, is direct, local action on the part of citizens. We must protect ourselves from the vicissitudes of our new over- heated politics by designing projects and life-plans that are to some degree insulated from those politics, while at the same time promoting a more inclu- sive citizenship that transcends traditional notions of who belongs. We can and must, she argues, “reach a consensus about democratic values in the realm of the social compact.” This means a humane culture of inclusion, a welcoming attitude toward immigrants, and a guaranteed housing income. The social compact requires us to respond to social and environmental disas- ters—and help to forestall them—when there is no longer a reliable govern- mental response in the offing. While our politics may follow a cycle of constant upending, swinging from extreme to extreme, citizens can create a (nonviolent) revolution from below the buffers us and continues to move us forward. This is not a book of political philosophy in the conventional sense. The era of Trump has created a feeling that we are living through an emergency, and this emergency requires theorizing about race, class, and gender in real time. Zack’s recent work in the philosophy of disaster and applicative justice has prepared her for just this moment. The depth and breadth of Zack’s unique perspective are on display here, marshaling a wide range of philo- sophical perspectives as well as historical, scientific, and legal knowledge on the issue of citizenship. This engaging book will captivate philosophers, historians, and social scientists, as well as critically minded citizens and, of course, students. This is philosophy we can use, here and now, for the times we live in. Ruth Sample Department of Philosophy University of New Hampshire DRAFT Preface and Acknowledgments My political memory goes back to the Eisenhower–Stevenson election cam- paign, when I was in middle school (or junior high school, as it was called then). I was a freshman in college when JFK was assassinated. I was in a park in Chicago (Grant Park, I think) when a cheer went up at the news that Nixon had resigned. I was not shocked by the Clinton–Lewinsky affair. On 9/11, I had moved to Oregon from New York earlier that summer and could not believe the headline on my computer, “ATTACK ON AMERICA.” I did not know if the attack was ongoing or over, after hits to the World Trade Center in New York City, the plane crash in Pennsylvania, and the fire at the Pentagon. I noticed that branches of the U.S. military were ceremonially represented, as well as the religions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, during Bush’s memorial service for the victims of 9/11 at the National Cathe- dral on September 14, 2001. In 2016, I thought Trump would win because there was a strange vitality to his campaign. When he won, the immediate reaction from Democrats and progressive intellectuals was as though dictatorship and fascism were upon us. Then progressives and the liberal establishment began to fight back. Since November 8, 2016, I have learned a little about Americans I don’t usually interact with, who continue in their loyalty to Trump. I have been heartened by the media and intellectual opposition since he’s been in office.