For too long the centre has plied us with hopes, cheap credit, mediated proxy wars and real-life, singing-and-dancing Barbie and Ken dolls, while at the same time diminishing any meaningful capacity to collectively determine our lives. They led us to believe we were witnessing the end of history. The wars of the 20th century were over and we no longer needed politics. We could now live long and prosper. Which, of course, some of us did – a portion that has steadily decreased in quantity while experiencing exponential increases in quality over time.
For the rest of us, the centrist mantra was merely extended. Pragmatism replaced dogmatism in Blair and Clinton’s ‘Third Way’ revolutions. Conflict fell dramatically out of fashion as principles were cast aside in the hot pursuit of hot cash. Confusingly, we even turned on those who maintained some meaning in their lives – pre-emptive aggression in case tolerating their beliefs would come back and violently haunt us. A double insult, when at the same time our pragmatist leaders encouraged them to dismantle the prefab societies our ancestors erected for them. When they came looking for help, we could hardly recognise them as human. You sense we would have sooner helped some comic, yellow skateboarders. No matter how enriched our soul, you could never eat it for dinner.
Far more dangerous here than any ideologue is the media icon that espouses the end of dogma, the end of having to take a stance or a position. By reserving the right to disavow any position one might level at it, ambiguous cultural iconography fails to provide parameters with which to gauge those positions, allowing itself to be used in the legitimisation of space created for interests other than liberalism or democracy. Just as the dismantling of social meaning leads to a dismantling of society itself, in the realm of politics, it leaves the door wide open. It is of the utmost importance that the decision to promote the supposed post-political stance is recognised as an explicitly political one. We can no longer afford to concede the realm of politics to a ruling elite to take care of us (if we ever could). If democracy is of any interest to us, we must practice it in all spaces, at all times. Otherwise, as we are now seeing, we risk leaving society’s materially vulnerable and spiritually empty to support the ideologue when they arise! So, can we please get back to politics now?
Credit: Sententia http://sententia82.tumblr.com/
https://www.decentralizedemocracy.org/blog/2019/1/6/can-we-get-back-to-politics-now
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