A world without violence and domination, from Athens to Kyiv: In dialogue with Jeffrey C. Alexander

Can we imagine a world without wars, violence and domination? What does it take to build such a society? I pose the above questions as an attempt to dialogue with Jeffrey Alexander's analysis of the paradoxical nature of the modern ‘civil sphere’ in a time of local and global turmoil. In this dialogue, I restate some of the key claims from Alexander's analysis and offer possible ways of conceptualising and re-imagining a more humanistic, responsive and ethical civil sphere. Contrary to Alexander, I argue that at the centre of the crisis of the civil sphere is not how its conceptions are always informed by an unproductive and antagonistic binarism. But the root problem has got to do with how the civil sphere has tolerated or become invaded by private class interests. As a result, the greatest undoing of the modern civil sphere lies in its furtherance of a distinctive class/economic position. To understand or unravel the ‘paradox’ that Alexander discusses in his piece, I suggest the need to focus more on broader socio-economic dynamics. As I will show, these broader socio-economic processes are central not only in shaping the nature of the civil sphere, but also in the re-production of endless violence, wars and human domination.