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285 Epilogue The Next Step? A s I have described it, valorizing coordination points us in the direction of an aesthetically enriching politics of strength. Widely enough realized, this would enliven a political counterculture of concerted movement oblique to the tension between free variation and unification —movement directed toward aligning our social, economic, political, technological, and cultural interdependence with increasing diversity and relational equity. But could valorizing coordination ever be enough? Would it be enough to break us globally out of the vicious circularity implied by the fact that realizing greater diversity and equity depends on a global readiness for improvisation that cannot be realized in the absence of more equitably oriented and diversity-enhancing patterns of local, national, regional, and global interdependence? Could it be enough to begin and sustain the kinds of global transformation needed for every mother, father, son, and daughter on the planet to have their subsistence needs met in the degree and with the relational quality needed for them to have more than just inspiring but ephemeral hopes of living dignified lives? If not, then so what? Given how things have come to be, what should we be doing now? How should we be responding to the intensifying conflicts, trouble, and suffering that continue to characterize life on our planet, in spite of—and, in reflexively increasing degree, because of—the remarkable achievements of humankind? It is fine to talk about realizing conditions that will be conducive to a new structure of feeling which expresses the meaning of relating-freely in shared improvisation of enhanced diversity and equity. And it is fine to 286 Valuing Diversity argue that political improvisation is, indeed, the only way forward given the complexity and volatility of global dynamics and the emergent nature of diversity and equity. But if the metanarrative of diversification through improvisation yields nothing in the way of real and effective steps that can be taken to address the kinds of global predicaments in which we already find ourselves immersed, it is hard to conclude that the “spaces of hope” it purports to open are anything more than imaginary. And imagination clearly is not enough. We know already that what we have been doing politically to realize a more peaceful and equitably prosperous world has had limited success . Deliberation, negotiation, establishing sanctions of various sorts, resorting to military intervention (for either strategic or humanitarian purposes), and setting common targets like the UN’s Millennium Development Goals are all processes with which we are familiar. In one circumstance or another, each has brought about desirable results. But all have also proven to fall far short of what is needed to begin translating hopes of dignity for all into lived realities. Best efforts notwithstanding, our present era remains one of both the greatest practical cooperation and the greatest disparities of wealth and relational opportunities the world has ever known. If valorizing coordination and improvisation is forwarded as a kind of response distinctively different from those that have been forthcoming thus far from across the contemporary spectrum of liberal and illiberal political systems and methods, it would seem to be reasonable to ask how some of the most “intractable” and troubling of our circumstances and conflicts would be addressed if we were, indeed, to begin moving obliquely to that spectrum. Even if it is accepted that movement of this sort is irreducibly open-ended—an arc into the unknown emerging in response to irreducibly particular circumstances—it nevertheless would seem reasonable to ask how we will know if we are making the right first steps, in the right direction. Unfortunately, however apparently reasonable it is for us to ask such questions, the desire to first know and then act is ultimately not conducive to the kusala or virtuosity-manifesting improvisations required to realize a sustainable politics of strength. Knowledge of the sort that would allow us to determine whether a particular constellation of efforts will be successful—for example, in ending conflicts over nuclear proliferation or responding equitably to climate change—in effect would empower us to fix the meaning and direction of differentiation processes. That is, it would enable us to instrumentally prescribe what each of us is and can mean for one another. This has historically been a very seductive possibility: realizing political change as a path defined in advance as a series of finite steps from one desirable goal to another. But with respect to realizing greater [18.217.203.172] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 07...

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