Mouffe

Mouffe's general argument centers on how to actualize democratic theory despite the innate inequalities built into the power structure and system. She thinks this can be overcome through a pluralistic lens by acknowledging that there are in fact differences and that it is okay to acknowledge those differences as long as it doesn't lead to exclusion. She recognizes that in practice, however, this is still difficult to achieve because the minorities (gender or race) are compared to the norm (male or whiteness), and that overcoming this idea of the norm/neutral is difficult because it is in fact very far from neutral. I think the issue she has with this idea of the norm is that is supposedly built upon rationality as a creator of equality like Rawl's theory argues; however, I think this approach fails to realize the fallacies built into that reasoning because there is little chance the current power group will not create justifications for their behavior. Pluralism is a place to begin in fixing this skewed view because it advocates for the existence of multiple different views at the same time without the infringement of either group. I wonder exactly how she thinks this would be able to be carried out given the current power group? I didn't really catch that in her theory discussion.