NAFO (North Atlantic Fella Organisation) is strong because it is diverse. It’s also insanely big by now. We all live in our own sub-bubbles and rarely see how widespread the movement is. I can’t believe it really in the scheme of things how far it has come.
Now, I’m not here to gush over NAFO or anything. However, its diversity in all kinds: age, sex, race, religion, and political views is incredible really. Of course, it is limited to Twitter which is primarily popular in certain countries and less so in others, so there is a lack of certain nationalities, as there is on Twitter. Nonetheless, it is really diverse, no one can deny that.
The political diversity is especially interesting to me, as a student of political theory. Why? Because it demonstrates the potential to come together despite some quite fundamental political differences to unify behind Ukraine. This gives faith in democracy as a concept, that bridges can be built, and we can look past differences about what matters.
This idea is fundamental to many, mostly liberal democratic political frameworks. By liberal I mean in a weak sense of belief in rule of law, rights, freedom, and usually some notion of equity. One of the most influential, (for better or worse) political philosophers of the 20th century was John Rawls. If you studied political theory or philosophy in some way, you probably heard of him. Here is a good link if not!
Rawls had lots of different interlinked ideas, some of which I am very sympathetic to, others less so, but we do not need to go into it all. But his idea of an overlapping consensus can be illustrated with NAFO. Let’s back up.
The overlapping consensus is an idea that all people have an idea of what is the good life yet there is a way to unify behind certain beliefs. What is the good life? Let’s say Alex’s idea of the good is a secular life, and Jane’s is a devoutly religious one. These are their conceptions of the good life. This doesn’t just apply to religion, it can apply to a lot of different things (in fact I argue more than Rawls realised) but it serves as an illustration. Alex and Jane both live in a democratic society and have very different views on many things. However, the consensus is, they come to understand that certain principles, certain rights, etc. are inviolable, even if that protects the freedom of people to do things they don’t like. It is in their own interest to support this, but that isn’t the point I want to focus on. What I want to focus on is that, here, people come to identify that despite their differences, which can be quite fundamental, there are core concepts worth accepting and adhering to.
This then comes to the idea of “public reason”, wherein, the reasons that justify the use of political power must appeal beyond one’s own conception fo the good. We all have our own ideas of the good life, but we should not justify political acts purely on our own conception of the good. For example, one may want to ban prostitution because it protects women and children, which is a reason that most people will accept, even if they disagree with the policy itself, so therefore, the debate will be shaped by considering the reasons which we all accept. If a person wanted to ban prostitution because its against their religion, that is justified on their own conception of the good.
Anyway, that’s enough political philosophy for now.
NAFO does the same. I’ve seen anarchists, conservatives, libertarians (both left and right), social democrats, trade unionists, ‘apolitical’ people, neoliberals, and socialists, all unite behind the NAFO banner because they accept certain things as inherently good: Ukraine’s sovereignty, and some idea of democracy over authoritarianism. On other things, they will, and do, disagree. However, this ability to unite is an example of an overlapping consensus. It’s different from what Rawls imagined, but the conception is the same.
This gives me faith because this is how a free society must operate. A society that only aims to promote a certain idea of the good life is an authoritarian one. One which recognises plurality is a free one. Regardless of our views of the state, taxation, religion, social issues, etc., we operate in a free society, respecting (Even if disliking) those we disagree with.
I would argue for the last 10 years, in many western countries, this respect for one another has really been decreasing, and people are going after rights we once thought were inviolable. They sit in bubbles, echo chambers, hating their ideas of ‘the other’ and wanting to strip certain rights and freedoms. I’m not saying we have to accept all views equally, I like NAFO specifically because it actually filters out genuinely horrible people (far right, tankies, etc.) and finds common grounds among the reasonable. But, we aren’t discussing politics with a respect for the fact that my freedom is yours, and yours is mine.
I used the word reasonable deliberately, as the ‘reasonable’ is a big concept to Rawls as well, arguing there are reasonable citizens, who accept diversity within society and do not wish to use the state to forbid or coerce fellow citizens (unless they violate the key rights we all agree upon) and unreasonable, who wish to use the state for their own benefits alone, denying the validity of differences in life plans. When someone denies someone a basic liberty, a basic resource, or something, because they wish to enforce their idea of the good life onto someone, they are, fundamentally, being unreasonable. Think of people who want to ban a book because it goes against their religion, those who wish to restrict LGBT people on the basis of their own personal views, or states which forbid religion(s) or the rights of certain groups, etc.
So yes, NAFO serves as a somewhat effective (though not perfect) analogy of an overlapping consensus, which makes me happy, and if I ever teach this, I can use it as a great example.
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