47 Fragmentation and Subjectification 1 and disengagement runs much deeper than merely a cognitive or cultural one. Simply adding knowledge (of citizenship topics such as democratic rights, values and responsibilities or the functioning of the constitutional state) or enhancing skills (intercultural sensitivity and behaviour) may appear adequate for addressing a widely identified problem, although such approaches actually reflect the type of superficial control thinking inherent to modernism. The fragmentation thesis exposes a much deeper and more layered problem of modern society: we live closely together, likely even under the rules of one state’s law, but we differ fundamentally from each other in terms of our deepest convictions and lifestyles regarding what Taylor (1989) identified as the three axes of moral thinking: what respect for others entails, what makes for a full (good) life and the dignity in our appearance before others. Thus, we differ on the most fundamental levels of understanding, living and behaving. Yet we live together. And we have to learn to manage these differences through peace and collaboration. 1.1.2 Consequences of fragmentation What exactly does the adjective fragmented mean with regard to late-modern society? This sub-section intends to provide a clearer definition of fragmentation for this study and to begin elaborating a conceptual scheme that accords with the general cultural analysis of MacIntyre (2007) and Taylor (1989), while also taking some steps ahead both in time and in the application of the analysis. The books by MacIntyre (2007) and Taylor (1989) briefly summarised above were written between 30 and 40 years ago. They analyse, first and foremost, Western culture in light of historic developments that pertain to moral thinking and behaving. The fragmentation or disengagement they describe is a cause and a consequence of human epistemology (‘the whole way in which we think, reason, argue, and question ourselves’; Taylor, 1989, p. 7), and it has immediate social and cultural consequences. The rapidly developing cultural and ethnic diversity comes on top of this directional diversity, although it is a more recent trend that largely escapes the interest of both philosophers. For this study, it is useful to describe how the different types of diversity reinforce each other in the globalising world of the 21st century. The layers upon which fragmentation manifests are, therefore, epistemological, social, cultural and—especially in Taylor’s (1989) vision— personal. The problem can be described on (at least) three different levels: the macro-level of the world, the meso-level of the society and the micro-level of the individual person. On the macro-level, fragmentation entails an ongoing separation of meaningful frameworks as a consequence of fundamental differences regarding those frameworks or simply a rejection of their existence.
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