Real democracy thrives on disagreement—unity without conflict often masks power and silences necessary political struggle.
In our troubled times of what some call the polycrisis, discourse narrows around a term, offered as something between a balm and a command: “Unity”. It appears in government addresses, media commentary, and corporate statements—an apparently neutral call to come together. But the term is little more than a call for false contentment. It asks us to set aside conflict, ignore contradiction, and accept a version of harmony that serves those already in power.
The constitutional scholar Carl Schmitt once said of liberal categories: “Whoever says ‘humanity’ is lying.” In other words: those who place everyone under the universal banner of humanity fail to recognize the existence of conflicting interests and power imbalances – and ultimately propagate nothing more than the sovereignty of one group over all others. Anyone who calls for wage restraint and social cutbacks “for the country” does not speak on behalf of workers or welfare recipients. Those who invoke humanity in their mission to reach Mars are not doing so on behalf of people struggling to survive here on Earth.
Schmitt of course was a Nazi, and by his formulation he meant something like the essential, relative inequality of human races and cultures – as an argument against universalism and democracy. But his critique can also be interpreted in a progressive way. Today, two false notions of “we” stand opposed to a politically potent – and democratically necessary – view of politics as a game of competing interests: the national-ethnic “we” of the right, and the universal, accidentally national “we” of the liberals.
For the Country
The ethnic “we” is based on Lebensraum (living space) and racial struggle. It may be concealed, but at its core lie biological-essentialist categories and the idea of a biological “other” that doesn’t belong. The absurd thesis of nationalism is that within the defined nation, everyone shares the same interests due to “racial” or cultural traits, and that the struggle of interests plays out between different nations. Retrotopian, racist, blind to history, and selfish, this idea ignores not just inner-national material differences, but also cultural divides between city and countryside, between regions and religions, generations, social milieus, and worldviews. The nationalist “we” feeds on the illusion of primordiality and homogeneity of the nation. It thus turns history into nature – and thereby transforms politics into racial hatred.
In contrast, it seems, stands the liberal “we,” appearing to be the cooperative and inclusive alternative. It doesn’t think in terms of race and essence, but instead clings to a universal “we” that ignores differences of power and interest – and thereby enforces a false sense of unity. By smoothing over divisions of class and other distinctions in favor of a shared, abstract interest the liberal ‘we’ becomes national by accident—leaving the nation as the only remaining site of collective belonging. The noble intention of liberal universalism can’t overcome the structural power of the national interest.
Liberalism doesn’t need an external enemy; it just pretends that there are no real divisions internally. So when a politician demands something to be done “for the country,” citizens suppress their own interests in a feeling of responsibility towards a false we. In the liberal imagination, we’re all in the same boat – and right now, that boat just happens to be the nation.
Both perspectives are essentially blind to power. The conflicting interests that make the relationships between nations so complex and compromise-dependent exist just as much or even more so within nations: between workers and owners, tenants and landlords, atheists and believers. The politics of unity thus becomes the politics of quiet compliance – and whom it ultimately serves is predictable: those whose interests have already prevailed. The rest shall be told the situation is without alternative.
A game of competing interests
You don’t have to be a Marxist to recognize the conflict lines of social reality as fundamental. Ralf Dahrendorf, one of those enlightened liberals who share little with today’s liberals, called for a kind of politically potent division. “Wherever there is authority, there is a conflict between those who exercise it and those who are subject to it.” Democracy is about recognizing these conflicts. Politics is a game of competing or opposing interests, which share that they create and maintain a space (a polity) in which politics is possible. This space must not be questioned by the various groups – but within it, there must be struggle. The democratic state is the one that uses the arena for the necessary battles – and not for collectively cheered military parades.
The differences do not only exist between “freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, baron and serf, guild master and journeyman” – they exist between drivers and cyclists, between stakeholders and shareholders, between young and old, between women and men, between urban and rural. Democracy is the space where these different interests are negotiated. The common good, then, is not mandated harmony, but a collectively carried compromise.
Political theorist Chantal Mouffe speaks of the paradox of democracy. In a democracy, the conflict of interests must not degenerate into a Schmittian friend-enemy perspective, but it must nevertheless be framed as a sort of political rivalry. The many “agonisms” must be acknowledged and managed – that, ultimately, is the great opportunity of democratic politics. Mouffe writes: “With the distinction between antagonism (friend/enemy relationship) and agonism (relationship between opponents), we can better understand why agonistic confrontation, rather than being a threat to democracy, is in fact its precondition.”
What matters is the categories we use to distinguish one another – it’s crucial to separate essence from existence in order to avoid falling into identity-driven tribalism. Ultimately, we are not biologically different, but rather structurally situated in different, changeable, and never absolute positions. What should unite us – alongside maintaining the political arena – is the protection of shared rights and institutions, and a peace achieved through the management of competing interests. Defending such an order against other, worse, alternatives should also unite us. But beyond that, Unity is not the basic norm of the republic. Whoever preaches that “we’re all in the same boat” wants us to believe that the interests of their boat are the interests of all boats. Anyone who fears conflict, ultimately fears the Republic.
Justus Seuferle is a political scientist who works for the European Institutions. He writes in a personal capacity.