Solidarity and the Crisis of Trust

Abstract

Solidarity has turned out to be a crucial concept for understanding political, moral, and human reality – indeed, crucial for understanding today’s world at large. Although I intend neither to summarize nor conclude the thoughts of the many marvelous thinkers present in this volume, I do wish to formulate several remarks which either directly or indirectly arise from those thoughts. Let me stress that it is worth noting the radical deficit of social solidarity (or “brotherhood”, as one of the authors prefers) that appeared in the modern era (that is, following the French Revolution). It is also worth noting not so much how the idea of solidarity takes shape, but how its practice does.