FROM DECONSTRUCTION TO RECONSTRUCTION - THE COMMUNITARIAN CHALLENGE FOR LIBERAL UNIVERSALISM AND CULTURAL RELATIVISM

The debate between communitarians and liberals is taking place within a socio-political and theoretical context. It is on the one hand reacting to the ups and down of neoliberal policies, on the other hand it aims to reconstruct the ''self'' and the political community after the postmodern deconstructivism. As liberal universalism is always left behind by the (neo-)liberal practice, the communitarians try to overcome the postmodern relativism to propose a new, virtue-based foundation of democracy and justice. Like Liberal universalism they also fail to reach their goal, because in political life their ideas are tuned into legitimizing ideologies. Due to their metaphysical argument regarding the recognition of difference, they devolve on the same idealism as the liberals, too. But recognition of cultural differences always requires a material basis, otherwise it becomes exclusive and inhuman.