ABSTRACT
Everyday antagonisms experienced by an individual, an institution, and society, or even by state structures can most often be reduced to the relationship between ethics and politics. This is a relationship that is explosive, contingent, dangerous, but also one which, to follow a liberal strand, can lead and facilitate a harmonious, prosperous, and peaceful society. In practice, politics or political struggles, as it is commonly thought, strive towards the greatest good for the greatest number of people living in a community. In order to achieve such ‘greatest good’, politics mobilizes various means – its material and symbolic capital – while aiming to maintain an ethical face. These ‘universal ethical standards’ are also a backbone of the existing legal principles and notions of right and wrong, while their perceived universality is consensual and societal. However, the universality of shared ethical norms and moral standards is such only for as long as it exists on the level of the form. That is, at the level of the discourse it is possible to address, engage, and even solve injustices, inequalities, or disagreements. Yet, the problem facing the political is that life in a community is not lived on the level of the discursive form.
