“The Stubborn Other” brings to mind Walter Lippmann’s famous essay “The Indispensable Opposition,” which reorients our concept of free speech from an individual right to a public necessity. William expands Lippmann’s notion of potential opposition to its source, the Other.
Lippmann says we need to grant the opponent the right to speak not so we can, in turn, insist on our own right to speak but so we can grow from our opponents’ perspectives. William, in addition, says that real political membership “means power, not mere permission to participate.” Compared with Lippmann’s essay, William’s essay involves not just perspectives but the entire person and community: “Other people do not exist to meet my needs; my need is to meet them.” Our second birth (and I look forward to reading Tilo Schabert’s *The Second Birth*) into “speech, action, and responsibility” describes the political community that nurtures the speech and listening that Lippmann celebrates.
More of my favorite lines from William’s essay:
“Diversity is easier when it’s not our own.”
“We are born from others, sustained by others, formed with others, selves in a world we did not make alone. Politics is what happens when we reckon with this shared life.”
“Politics exists because we are alike enough to share a world, and different enough for something new to happen. It is how we make room for the future.”
“We don’t just fear the stranger; we fear the neighbor—close enough to matter, different enough to disturb. Good neighbors build boundaries together.”
“To remain in the argument, in a shared, difficult world. To act without certainty, knowing a single deed or word can alter the order; we cannot speak into a void; a world begins when another answers.”
Thank you for bringing Lippmann into the argument. I would add one point of emphasis. Lippmann asks why a polity needs opposition: opponents test judgment and help a public correct itself. *The Stubborn Other* asks what follows when the opponent is not only a bearer of arguments but a person, a neighbor, and a member of the community. The other may teach me, but does not exist to teach me.
Membership means more than gaining a hearing or supplying a perspective. It means sharing power with people whose claims may limit mine. Lippmann explains the public need for opposition. The essay presses toward the obligations created by the person who opposes us.
That said, I appreciate the care of your reading, Bryce: the connection to Lippmann, and the way you draw out the essay’s account of political membership. You have named the argument more clearly than I did in places.
Thank you for exploring and sharpening the differences between the essays. Lippmann's point is well taken, but his move from a speaker's opponent as inopportune rights-bearer to a speaker's opponent as an unappreciated means of self-improvement keeps the emphasis on the individual, the speaker. Your essay broadens the context to the community and to "the obligations created by the person who opposes us." Here's the difference put with moral concision: "The other may teach me, but does not exist to teach me."
“The Stubborn Other” brings to mind Walter Lippmann’s famous essay “The Indispensable Opposition,” which reorients our concept of free speech from an individual right to a public necessity. William expands Lippmann’s notion of potential opposition to its source, the Other.
Lippmann says we need to grant the opponent the right to speak not so we can, in turn, insist on our own right to speak but so we can grow from our opponents’ perspectives. William, in addition, says that real political membership “means power, not mere permission to participate.” Compared with Lippmann’s essay, William’s essay involves not just perspectives but the entire person and community: “Other people do not exist to meet my needs; my need is to meet them.” Our second birth (and I look forward to reading Tilo Schabert’s *The Second Birth*) into “speech, action, and responsibility” describes the political community that nurtures the speech and listening that Lippmann celebrates.
More of my favorite lines from William’s essay:
“Diversity is easier when it’s not our own.”
“We are born from others, sustained by others, formed with others, selves in a world we did not make alone. Politics is what happens when we reckon with this shared life.”
“Politics exists because we are alike enough to share a world, and different enough for something new to happen. It is how we make room for the future.”
“We don’t just fear the stranger; we fear the neighbor—close enough to matter, different enough to disturb. Good neighbors build boundaries together.”
“To remain in the argument, in a shared, difficult world. To act without certainty, knowing a single deed or word can alter the order; we cannot speak into a void; a world begins when another answers.”
Thank you for bringing Lippmann into the argument. I would add one point of emphasis. Lippmann asks why a polity needs opposition: opponents test judgment and help a public correct itself. *The Stubborn Other* asks what follows when the opponent is not only a bearer of arguments but a person, a neighbor, and a member of the community. The other may teach me, but does not exist to teach me.
Membership means more than gaining a hearing or supplying a perspective. It means sharing power with people whose claims may limit mine. Lippmann explains the public need for opposition. The essay presses toward the obligations created by the person who opposes us.
That said, I appreciate the care of your reading, Bryce: the connection to Lippmann, and the way you draw out the essay’s account of political membership. You have named the argument more clearly than I did in places.
Thank you for exploring and sharpening the differences between the essays. Lippmann's point is well taken, but his move from a speaker's opponent as inopportune rights-bearer to a speaker's opponent as an unappreciated means of self-improvement keeps the emphasis on the individual, the speaker. Your essay broadens the context to the community and to "the obligations created by the person who opposes us." Here's the difference put with moral concision: "The other may teach me, but does not exist to teach me."