Why to be in solidarity at all? Late modern identity conflicts between collective consciousness and singular self-realization

The term ʻsolidarityʼ has undoubtedly become a battle cry in political discourse during the Covid-19 pandemic. In view of the global challenges, solidarity was called for to ensure the protection of human lives and to limit the social, cultural and economic damage. But the credo "We have to be in solidarity!" can only be understood if we assume, in an egalitarian sense, a shared responsibility towards global problems that is nourished by empathy and fellow humanity (Gould 2007, p. 155; Fine 2018). However, such a cosmopolitan norm of solidarity seems to simply overwhelm the moral capacity to act of most people. After all, and in the face of ongoing economic, social, ecological, and humanitarian crises, the global lack of solidarity can hardly be explained otherwise (Liedman 2020). Solidarity remains determined by an irrevocable particularism that ties the willingness to grant it to common material and substantial living conditions, beliefs, values, feelings of belonging and thus a collective identity (Bayertz 1998, pp. 11, 49). Accordingly, the question is not only why to be in solidarity at all but with whom? Not just under late modern conditions of a radically de-traditionalized and pluralized world, it has to be taken into account that solidarity, as an expectation or mere possibility (Helfritzsch 2020, p. 239), is always in historical, theoretical and methodological crisis itself (Dallinger 2009). For Émile Durkheim, solidarity, just like identity, nevertheless remains a social fact that does not simply disappear in the context of social upheavals and experiences of inequality. Instead, corresponding ideas adapt to changed structures, a social interest of society towards the individual and practical reason regarding the organization of social coexistence. As part of the polarization tendencies currently observed in Western societies, identity conflicts always deal with the social tension between the individual and the collective. Although the differences in economic, social and cultural livelihoods have unquestionably increased in the wake of the pandemic, altered structures and dependencies of late-modern societies are the result of long-term developments. My contribution seeks to trace these changes with respect to questions of solidarity and (collective) identity in the tension between collectivism and singularization. The focus is on adjustments from a mechanical to an organic solidarity (Durkheim [1930] 1988), from a solidarity out of need to a solidarity out of fear (Beck 1992), and the current conflict between hyperculture and cultural essentialism (Reckwitz 2020). I argue that the dichotomous juxtaposition of two poles of identity (Merkel 2017; Fukuyama 2018; Reckwitz 2020,), contributes to the perpetuation of inequalities and paradoxes, because it further entrenches the competition between 'winners' and 'losers' in late modern societies. If the realization of one's own goals, interests and identity can only be achieved at the expense of others, the common basis for social solidarity disappears. And if different camps are no longer able to overcome their partiality for the sake of a future commonality (Habermas 1995, p. 221), societies inevitably run the risk of developing new communities of solidarity from within.