African American Policy ForumVarmennettu tili

Being a scholar is certainly a part of my identity. But cops are functionaries of the state. Individuals should not identify with being an agent of state power. As an contributor to a ‘limited government’ publication like @Quillette, surely you’d agree?https://twitter.com/sawthedust/status/1142080752428994563 …

I cannot really tell how you arrived at that conclusion. However, by definition that is incorrect.

I mean Basant is right that it’s all a fiction meant to legitimate power.

If you mean that those in power cynically exploit the democratic ideal (pretending it is an ineluctable fact rather than a contingent project) to maintain power, then I agree. But that is just to say that democracies can stagnate without continual vigilance of the public.

What I mean is that all theories of power legitimation are just that — theories. Some of these stories we tell ourselves are more convincing than others, but they’re still stories. They don’t exist “out there” in reality somewhere.

The whole point is that the democratic story generates a process of election and appointment, which results in power that has legitimacy only insofar as it conforms to the ideal we agreed upon. Nothing depends on the ontological reality (whatever that means) of democratic ideals.