Avishai Margalit Quotes on Politics
Avishai Margalit's The Decent Society (1996) and the closely related On Compromise and Rotten Compromises (2010) develop a distinctive minimal political ideal organized around the avoidance of humiliation rather than the maximization of justice. The decent society — Margalit's positive ideal — is one whose institutions do not humiliate the people who fall under their authority; the framework is offered as the achievable political goal in the actual circumstances of imperfect modern political life, in contrast to the more demanding (and less practically realizable) ideal of the just society. The framework grounds Margalit's broader work on national identity, the ethics of memory, and the political-philosophical analysis of the rotten compromises that even decent regimes must sometimes negotiate with greater evils.
Quotes
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Attributed to Avishai Margalit:
“A decent society is one whose institutions do not humiliate its members.”
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Attributed to Avishai Margalit:
“Justice is the minimal requirement of politics; decency is its proper aspiration.”
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Attributed to Avishai Margalit:
“Memory is the medium in which a community remains itself across time.”
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Attributed to Avishai Margalit:
“Some compromises are rotten; the wise politician knows which ones.”
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Attributed to Avishai Margalit:
“The thick and the thin moralities are not rivals; they answer different needs.”