The civil sphere and its resilient tribalist discontents: a muslim ban cloaked in sacralized binaries
This article explores how primordial, tribally rooted bonds become sacralized within the Civil Sphere (CS), challenging prevailing assumptions about the sphere’s inertial universal horizon. Through a structuralist-hermeneutic analysis of communicative and regulatory institutions surrounding...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | deu |
| Published: |
Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, Belgrade
2025-01-01
|
| Series: | Filozofija i Društvo |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0353-5738/2025/0353-57382501063B.pdf |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | This article explores how primordial, tribally rooted bonds become sacralized
within the Civil Sphere (CS), challenging prevailing assumptions about the
sphere’s inertial universal horizon. Through a structuralist-hermeneutic
analysis of communicative and regulatory institutions surrounding the Trump
Administration’s Muslim Ban (2017-2021), the study reveals how exclusionary,
anti-civil policies become legitimized within ostensibly civil frameworks.
Central to this dynamic is a paradox within the CS, wherein the discourse of
liberty inherently justifies repression when targeted groups are represented
as threats to democratic universality. This analysis demonstrates the
persistence of a “tribal solidaristic horizon,” rooted in primordial ties to
blood, land, and religion, strategically mobilized through civil motives,
relations, and institutions to narrow solidarity. The Muslim Ban initially
faced fierce opposition, characterized by widespread protests and judicial
scrutiny framed by civil binaries profaning the ban as un-American,
anti-democratic, and unconstitutional. Subsequent iterations adapted
strategically to these cultural binaries, gaining legitimacy through
orderly, procedural implementation. This strategic civil rebranding
exemplifies how primordial ties-grounded in race, place, and religious
identity-continue to shape and constrain the civil sphere, facilitating
democratic backsliding through the relativization and manipulation of civil
motives, relations, and institutions. Ultimately, the study extends Civil
Sphere Theory by underscoring vulnerabilities to relativization of core
cultural binaries, highlighting that resilience in democratic societies
requires critical recognition of how civil discourses themselves can be
co-opted to legitimize exclusion. The Muslim Ban case thus reveals
significant deficits in universalistic CS resilience, signaling
vulnerability to sustained exclusion despite apparent civil repair. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 0353-5738 2334-8577 |