Modes of Disagreement, Tolerance and Educational Encounters

Abstract

Our focus is on the practice of disagreement as a way, firstly, through which educational encounters might be enhanced, and secondly, as a practice that can engender dissent. We do this, by exploring two conceptions by Gutmann and Thompson. First we consider ‘deliberative disagreements’ (Democracy and disagreement. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), and second, ‘an economy of moral disagreement’ (Why deliberative democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004). Secondly, we consider Butler’s (Excitable speech: A politics of the performative. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997) resignification of speech as an act of tolerance. We conclude the chapter by considering Nussbaum’s (Hiding from humanity: Disgust, shame, and the law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004) treatment of disgust, shame and humiliation as ways in which humanity can be undermined, as resistance to shaming people through speech. In this manner, we argue why disagreement is constitutive of a conditional tolerance, that is, we make an argument for tolerant human action, as constituted by the practice of disagreement.