Politisk danning etter 22. juli

Political education after july 22. This article makes the case fordeliberation as a major end-in-view for a political education in the general sense. The immediate backdrop is the neofascist ideology of Anders Behring Breivik and his ilk, an ideology that may partly explain the motive behind the devastation of government buildings in Oslo and the following mass shooting at Ut ya on July 22. My intention here will, however, be limited to the question: what is basic to the idea of deliberation? My answer is twofold: deliberation is a reasonable method for arriving at a possible and temporary agreement on questions of truth and morality; and it is based on some – usually tacit – mutual presuppositions. These two aspects together make deliberation educative and part of an education for deliberative democracy. Without deliberation as a method we are unable to get at what John Dewey used to call “warranted assertibility”. Without deliberation as embedded in joint assumptions we would be unable to distinguish between method as wayward gibberish and as reasonable conversation. On pain of being presumptuous I invite the reader to this short educative stroll!