Behalf

In Behalf P. N. Furbank argues that in thinking about society and politics, one needs to start from the proposition that every human being contains within himself or herself the entire potentiality of the human species and that it is therefore wrong to regard cultural differences as innate. This conclusion, in turn, raises doubts about the concept of pluralism as propounded by political philosophers such as Isaiah Berlin. According to Berlin, societies incarnate sets of values that, while good in themselves, might be incommensurable or incompatible with those of other societies. As Furbank shows, however, the epithets "incommensurable" and "incompatible" fall to pieces under scrutiny. Furthermore, the tacit implication that pluralism is a political concept, rivaling democracy, appears to be an illusion. Furbank proceeds to consider the question of what it means to act "on behalf" of others. He notes that the apparent strength of "politics of the person" - the ground of feminist, black, and gay politics, with its insistence that everyone should speak with his or her own distinctive voice, unmediated by representation or action on behalf of others - is its freedom from the taint of philanthropy. But he argues that this freedom comes at a high price, which is no less than that of involving the term "politics" in self-contradiction. He concludes that there is seemingly no substitute for what one might call "politics proper" and that this form of politics is by nature on behalf of someone or something not itself - a politics that is, incurably, philanthropic, and, being so, is exposed to all the snares and temptations with which philanthropy is plagued. P. N. Furbank is a professor emeritus from the Open University and the author of nine books, including Diderot: A Critical Biography, which won the Truman Capote Award for a work of literary criticism. He is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement.