Letter from the Co-Chairs
Dear members, colleagues and friends,
This is our final Contexts foreword as GASi Co-Chairs after three years in this role. As we reflect on this period, we are mindful of the profound social and political changes that continue to shape our collective lives. We often find ourselves trying to hold the centre amidst turbulence—the maelstrom, an image that also informed the theme of the UK Summer School 2025 and reflects many of the dynamic processes unfolding within our Society.
This year, the 49th Foulkes Lecture invited us to revisit Pichon-Rivière’s concept of the dialectical spiral, enriching and deepening our understanding of the tripartite matrix. We would like once again to express our sincere gratitude to our lecturer, Carla Penna, and to her respondent, Dieter Nitzgen, for their thoughtful and stimulating contributions.
As Pat de Maré wrote in Koinonia, dialogue is an open-ended process through which meaning is created, consciousness is expanded and cultural sensitivity develops. Dialogue lies at the heart of democratic life because it asks us not only to speak, but also to listen, reflect and think together.
Reflecting on responsibility and democracy, Aesop’s fable “The Frogs Who Asked for a King” offers a powerful metaphor that remains relevant today. During the period when Athens was flourishing, laws were established and freedom was spreading. Yet, at the same time, dissoluteness broke. Freedom alone, therefore, is not sufficient to sustain democracy. The result was Pisistratus the Tyrant taking the city under control. Athenians were lamenting their servitude not because it was brutal but because the burden was unbearable to whom is not used to. Aesop’s fable was a lesson addressed to the Athenians. The frogs, although living in freedom, urgently asked Jupiter to give them a king who would restrain their unruly behaviour. Jupiter first sent them a small Log. The frogs dismissed it as useless and demanded another king. This time, Jupiter sent a Water Snake. The frogs terrified become speechless and begged Jupiter, through Mercury, to replace their new king. Jupiter refused, telling them to endure their misfortune because they had failed to appreciate the good fortune they had once enjoyed. The frogs never understand that in order to use the small Log it was necessary to bear the burden together, to endure a collaborative effort, to respect and trust each other, to share responsibility instead of competing for power.
The fable reminds us that democracy requires more than freedom. It requires the willingness to bear responsibility together, to cultivate trust, to collaborate and to resist the temptation to seek solutions through power alone.
Within GASi, members had the opportunity to consider whether the Society should continue with a Chair and Deputy Chair model rather than returning to a presidency. Although the proposed constitutional amendment was not supported at the online General Meeting in May, the discussion reflected the Society’s continuing engagement with questions of leadership, democracy and shared responsibility.
In the coming weeks members will elect a new President. We would like to thank all those who have offered themselves for this important role and wish whoever is elected every success in leading the Society. We hope, to borrow Farhad Dalal’s phrase, that GASi will continue to take itself “seriously” as a democratic and reflective organisation.
These reflections extend beyond the life of our Society. It seems that power relations have become the dominant way of relating within contemporary culture. If this is the crude reality, freedom and democracy will be sacrificed together with truth, as Umberto Galimberti reminds us.
Already in the fourth century BCE, Plato warned of the influence of sophists and rhetoricians. Sophists persuaded through unfounded claims, while rhetoricians captivated people (dèmos) through emotional appeal, often encouraging uncritical agreement. Two paths are highlighted and remain strikingly relevant; the path of justice (Díke) and the path of deception (Apáte), both strengthened by persuasion (Peithó).
The myth of Cassandra illustrates this paradox. Although she spoke the truth, she lacked the power to persuade and therefore remained unheard. Words can become powerful not only because they correspond to reality but because they persuade others. When persuasion becomes detached from truth, language risks serving influence rather than understanding. Persuasion is the power that words exert on an individual, and when this effect is recognized by the others it confers autonomy to the order of the words. The words no longer depend on their ability to know and describe the truthfulness of reality, therefore have value in themselves. The power of the words became independent by their connection with reality; they become based more on persuasive power than on cognitive power.
The growing complexity of contemporary society makes it increasingly difficult to recognize persuasion in the language of the other. At the same time, more of our lives are mediated through digital communication, where computer-mediated interaction increasingly replaces face-to-face encounter. A person can be persuaded, without having any consciousness to be a victim of the written representative world, within the virtual world.
Menarini distinguishes between analogical language—the language of gesture, tone of voice, facial expression and embodied presence—and digital language, which relies upon verbal symbols detached from direct experience. While digital communication has greatly expanded opportunities to share ideas, it also requires new symbolic codes that can become increasingly removed from lived reality. There is a risk that complex thinking is gradually reduced to simpler and more polarised forms of understanding.
When relationships of power become the dominant way of relating, democracy, freedom and truth may be progressively weakened, creating fertile ground for denial. Stanley Cohen described denialism not simply as refusing to acknowledge facts but as the systematic rejection or distortion of historical and social reality. Such processes are often familiar within traumatic systems, where alternative narratives gradually replace historical experience.
Online communication may unintentionally deepen this detachment from reality. Although it often appears that we are discussing the same events, each contribution subtly reshapes the narrative until representations begin to replace the realities from which they emerged. Connections between events become fragmented, and our understanding of time, place and history can gradually lose coherence.
Media are no longer simply channels through which events are communicated; they increasingly shape how reality itself is experienced. Information is no longer only a report of events but can become part of the construction of reality itself. Consensus may gradually shift away from shared understanding of events towards agreement about their representations.
Perhaps this is one way of understanding the continuing relevance of the Pharmakós, the theme of this year’s GASi Symposium in Athens, hosted by IGA-Athens. It reminds us that societies have always struggled with exclusion, projection and mistrust. Yet it also reminds us that another possibility exists: that through dialogue we may become more capable of carrying conflict together rather than locating it solely in others.
The Symposium offers us an important opportunity to meet one another again in person following the years during which so much of the Society’s life has necessarily taken place online due to Covid-19 pandemic. Coming together allows us not only to exchange ideas, but also to renew relationships, strengthen our shared commitment to the Society and continue the conversations that sustain our work.
As we conclude our time as Co-Chairs, we would like to thank everyone who has supported the Society during these past three years. We hope that our gathering in Athens will provide an opportunity to reflect together on the challenges we face, while reaffirming the importance of dialogue, democratic participation and our shared responsibility for the future of GASi.
We look forward to seeing many of you in Athens.
Francesca and Sanja
GASi Co-Chairs