Ignoring the Unreasonable

Abstract Illiberal and antidemocratic political forces, for example, in the form of far-right populism, are on the rise. Such politics, commonly referred to as ‘unreasonable’ in political philosophy, is widely seen as a threat to democracy. Many argue that an adequate response must involve listening to , that is, understanding and seriously considering the perspective of the unreasonable. I disagree. I argue that as democratic citizens, we should not listen to the unreasonable; we should, in a sense, ignore them, that is, refuse to understand and seriously consider their perspective, although continue to monitor their activities. Listening to the unreasonable is not instrumentally required for countering unreasonable politics. In addition, the unreasonable likely have no moral claim to be listened to. Finally, listening to them is disrespectful to reasonable citizens whose voice is ignored for the sake of paying attention to the unreasonable. For these reasons, we should ignore the unreasonable.