What constitutes our right to belong?

Abstract

As the manuscript of a dinner speech, this chapter questions light-heartedly whether having the right to belong to a social occasion, such as a conference dinner, bears a relationship with social policy criteria that constitute"belonging" to a social and political unit such as the nation state as welfare state. Since the criteria that constituted the"classical" welfare regimes, and hence the meaning of what is"social" , are currently under attack from neoliberal's insistence on individual self-care, the talk seeks to show that the splitting of the meaning of"social" into a derogatory (e"social cases" ) and a sentimental (e"social benefactor" ) orientation impacts on all forms of"socialising" by rendering them instrumental for ulterior motives rather than communally enjoyable.