Healthy Conflict in Contemporary American Society
From Enemy to Adversary

Develops an approach to contemporary religious, moral, and political conflicts in which conflict may be constructively reframed and creatively engaged toward productive democratic practice.

Jason A. Springs (Author)

9781108424424, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 April 2018

368 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.5 cm, 0.64 kg

'Jason A. Springs urges us not to stick our heads in the sand, but to confront unflinchingly, with imagination and courage, the conflicts that threaten to rend our way of life. Liberal tolerance isn't the answer. Instead, 'healthy conflict' can be the basis for enduring social and political change. This is an important and timely book.' Eddie Glaude, Princeton University

US citizens perceive their society to be one of the most diverse and religiously tolerant in the world today. Yet seemingly intractable religious intolerance and moral conflict abound throughout contemporary US public life - from abortion law battles, same-sex marriage, post-9/11 Islamophobia, public school curriculum controversies, to moral and religious dimensions of the Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street movements, and Tea Party populism. Healthy Conflict in Contemporary American Society develops an approach to democratic discourse and coalition-building across deep moral and religious divisions. Drawing on conflict transformation in peace studies, recent American pragmatist thought, and models of agonistic democracy, Jason Springs argues that, in circumstances riven with conflict between strong religious identities and deep moral and political commitments, productive engagement may depend on thinking creatively about how to constructively utilize conflict and intolerance. The result is an approach oriented by the recognition of conflict as a constituent and life-giving feature of social and political relationships.

Introduction
Part I. Pragmatist Repertoires: 1. The difficulty of imagining other persons, re-imagined: moral imagination as a tool for transforming conflict
2. Turning the searchlight inward: cultivating the virtues of moral imagination
3. To let suffering speak: love, justice, and hope against hope
4. The prophet and the president: prophetic rage in the age of Obama
5. Testing the spirits: discerning true prophecy from false
6. 'Dismantling the master's house': using the system to transform the system
Part II. Beyond American Intolerance: 7. Giving religious intolerance its due: agonistic respect in a post-secular society
8. Looking it up in your gut?: Visceral politics and healthy conflict in the tea party era
9. Islamophobia, American style: tolerance as American exceptionalism, and the prospects for strenuous pluralism
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP], Ethical issues & debates [JFM], Philosophy of religion [HRAB], Religion: general [HRA], Social & political philosophy [HPS], Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ]