7. Supplanting the Culture of Contest

The expansive conceptions of power and resistance examined in Chapter 6 enable us, in this chapter, to explore the paradox of protest within the prevailing culture of contest. Structuring dominant social institutions as contests of power gives an inherent advantage to those who enter the contests with the most power. This results in myriad social injustices, which give rise to myriad movements for social justice. When such movements adopt contentious politics as their primary means, they are adopting the means prescribed by the culture of contest. This is the paradox of protest in a culture of contest. Transcending this paradox requires us to recognize modernity as an era of fundamental transition in human affairs. To usher in a more just social order, we will have to center radical forms of constructive agency that seek to entirely supplant the culture of contest. Radical constructive agency implies the construction of new social forms that address the root causes of the challenges we face, including the root causes of injustice and oppression. This requires us to foster the most ennobling and creative powers of the human spirit; to cultivate capacities for altruism and inclusion that enable us to overcome susceptibilities toward egoism and othering; and to construct new patterns of community life and the institutional structures needed to support them. To illustrate such means, we briefly examine a growing body of relevant movement experience.