We are living in continuous crises: societies hit by Covid19, wars in our neighborhood, inflation, dropping standard of living. Growing social tension can be detected in increasing polarization that translates into impatience and unwillingness to understand Otherness or different opinions. These phenomena affect profoundly not only the state of democracy but also its prospects. In addition, they will determine the future of the EU as we know it today. This lecture discusses extremist narratives from the point of view of marginalizing discourses that create a black-and-white interpretation of everyday life based on demarcation and exclusion of the Other.

In this context, ethics is closely intertwined with the challenges of the rule of law. The basic question is how we perceive ethics in polarized societies. Per se, ethics is the social, political, and cultural code of a community, a core system of values that is fundamental for its existence. How do ethical rules function in a divided society? What is the chance to agree on an ethical system that all citizens would share and what are the emerging trends of coexisting parallel forms of ethic? And finally, where do parallel ethics take us regarding the wider context of the rule of law?

The lecture will provoke discussion about what ethics means for young people and what the very concrete bridge between ethics and the everyday practice of democracy is. I will test this connection by addressing examples such as bullying, cheating, taboos, black-and-white standing.

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