MAKING SPACE FOR JUSTICE MAKING SPACE FOR JUSTICE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, COLLECTIVE IMAGINATION, AND POLITICAL HOPE MICHELE MOODY- ADAMS Columbia University Press New York publication supported by a grant from The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven as part of the Urban Haven Project Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex cup . columbia. edu Copyright © 2022 Columbia University Press Antonio Machado, excerpt from “Proverbs and Songs” #29, from Border of a Dream: Selected Poems, translated by Willis Barnstone. Copyright © 2004 the heirs of Antonio Machado. English translation copyright © 2004 Willis Barnstone. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org. Seamus Heaney, The Cure at Troy, excerpt reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Limited and Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Excerpt from “Anthem.” Words and music by Leonard Cohen. Copyright © 1992 Sony Music Publishing LLC and Stranger Music Inc. All rights administered by Sony Music Publishing LLC, 424 Church Street, Suite 1200, Nashville, TN 37219. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Moody-Adams, Michele M., author. Title: Making space for justice : social movements, collective imagination, and political hope / Michele Moody-Adams. Description: New York : Columbia University Press, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021048822 (print) | LCCN 2021048823 (ebook) | ISBN 9780231201360 (hardback) | ISBN 9780231201377 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780231554060 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Social movements—Philosophy. | Social justice—Philosophy. | Social change—Philosophy. Classification: LCC HM881 .M666 2022 (print) | LCC HM881 (ebook) | DDC 303.48/4—dc23/eng/20220120 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021048822 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021048823 Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid- free paper. Printed in the United States of America Cover image: Aaron Douglas, Harriet Tubman, 1931. © 2022 heirs of Aaron Douglas / licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Cover design: Julia Kushnirsky CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 I UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 1 What Is a Social Movement? 13 2 Social Movements and the Task of Democracy 47 3 Social Movements and the Moral Life 79 II SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND THE POWER OF  COLLECTIVE IMAGINATION 4 Taking Imagination Seriously 117 5 Language Matters 155 6 Justice and the Narrative Imagination 187 vi (cid:89) Contents III THE IMPORTANCE OF POLITICAL HOPE 7 The Empire of Affect and the Challenge of Collective Hope 225 8 Hope and History 255 Notes 275 Bibliography 309 Index 329 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS M aking Space for Justice builds on my long- standing interest in moral progress, by which I mean prog- ress toward producing a more just social world. My work on the topic began with my paper “The Idea of Moral Progress” (1999), defending the idea against various skeptical challenges. In a series of public talks and exchanges, many of which led to further publications, I then turned to consider how we produce moral progress. I first explored the role of social movements in “Moral Progress and Human Agency,” for a con- ference organized in 2015 by Bert Musschenga at Vrije Uni- versität in Amsterdam. I reflected on the emergence of social movements in “Democracy, Identity and Politics” for a confer- ence organized by Colleen McCluskey and sponsored by Res Philosophica at St. Louis University in 2017. In spring 2019 I joined Myisha Cherry for an episode of her philosophy podcast, UnMute, to discuss monuments, memorials, and the social activism that was challenging monuments to colonialism and the Confederacy. Later in 2019 I spoke on the role of imagina- tion in social movements at a conference on “Imagination and Social Change” organized by Amy Kind at Claremont- McKenna College. I am grateful to the philosophers who invited me to viii (cid:89) Acknowledgments take part in these projects. Professor Kind also provided helpful commentary on this manuscript. My colleagues in the Columbia Department of Philosophy offered a supportive environment in which to develop central ele- ments of this project. Philip Kitcher encouraged my interest in John Dewey. Bob Gooding- Williams and Carol Rovane were generous interlocutors on a range of topics concerning democ- racy and ideology. David Albert, Fred Neuhouser, and Chris Peacocke offered helpful comments on my work on “Civic Art of Remembrance and the Democratic Imagination.” As Making Space for Justice unfolded, Jenann Ismael and Wolfgang Mann provided incisive comments on significant portions of the manuscript. Philosophers and political theorists from many other depart- ments helped me refine central arguments for the book. In 2018 Jeremy Waldron and Samuel Scheffler invited me to talk about Confederate monuments and political aesthetics for the NYU Colloquium in Legal, Political, and Social Philosophy, which they were then coleading. In addition to in- depth discussions with them, I profited from conversation with Samuel Freeman, Ekow Yankow, and Daniel Viehoff. I also presented portions of the argument to philosophy departments at MIT, Harvard, Amherst, Cal State Bakersfield, and Brooklyn College thanks to Sally Haslanger, Rachel Goodyer, Rafeeq Hasan, Michael Burroughs, and Serene Khader. This led to many productive exchanges about how art, imagination, history, and hope might help to drive progress. In 2020, at the invitation of Robbie Kub- ala and Elizabeth Scarborough, I was challenged to clarify con- nections between justice and political aesthetics in “Why Mon- uments Matter” for a session at a meeting of the American Society of Aesthetics. Acknowledgments (cid:90) ix Participating in law school workshops at UCLA in 2018 and the University of Virginia in 2019 challenged me to think more deeply about the legal implications of my views. Mark Green- berg, Barbara Herman, and Seana Shiffrin provided collegiality and stimulating conversation during my UCLA visit, as did Micah Schwartzman and Gregg Strauss during my visit to Char- lottesville. While in Charlottesville I made an unexpectedly quiet but remarkably instructive visit to the park that, at the time, still contained the statue of Robert E. Lee that had generated controversy and violence in August 2017. At a pivotal moment in my thinking about social move- ments, Tommie Shelby and Brandon Terry invited me to con- tribute to their edited volume, To Shape a New World (2018), on Martin Luther King Jr.’s political thought. Working on “The Path of Conscientious Citizenship” for that volume trans- formed my understanding of the power of collective action. This led me to develop a seminar on “Dissent, Protest and Disobedience” that required the study of social movements in several national contexts and increased my comprehension of what social movements do. I am deeply indebted to those who encouraged my work dur- ing the difficult days and months of the COVID- 19 pandemic and lockdown. My husband, James Eli Adams, is a brilliant interlocutor and a demanding reader who consistently challenged me to write in a way that might speak to a broad audience. He was an unflagging source of intellectual sustenance and emo- tional strength. Our daughter, Katherine Adams, helped to make me a more nuanced observer of the links between art, memory, and political life. She was also an inspiring example of resilience and determination in a time of great uncertainty. I thank Wendy Lochner, my editor at Columbia University Press,