Love and reason make possible a principled negotiation of our differences, and although rarely described in these terms, I believe that civil society is best understood not as a “thing” to be created by outsiders but as a constantly-unfolding marriage between these two sets of capacities. The importance of reason to democracy has been central to public debate since the Enlightenment, love much less so. Talk of love, at least in public, is considered embarrassing, flaky, and even ridiculous. Nevertheless, I want to make the case that love should be a central topic of our conversation. The absence of love from the public sphere has become a terrible, defining characteristic of contemporary society. Read more on openDemocracy here…
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