Thread by @docrussjackson

Today's word in the everlasting war against the rise of the far-right at home & abroad, is 'retrotopia', the title of Zygmunt Bauman's last book.

'People who feel ignored or left behind become more tribal & develop a retrospective, nostalgic gaze.'

radicalrightanalysis.com/2019/01/04/doe…

Bauman argues that many share a sense of being left behind, abandoned, ignored (not ‘listened to’) & made redundant. This demise is blamed on traditional political elites, the MSM, foreign foes, & narratives frequently saturated with elaborate theories of conspiracy & treason.

It's also the outcome of a dramatic U-turn in the public mindset: “from investing public hopes of improvement in the uncertain and ever-too-obviously untrustworthy future, to re-investing them in the vaguely remembered past, valued for its assumed stability & so trustworthiness”.

Bauman's work can give us hope for the future, in difficult times: he seeks to reorient the contemporary gaze toward a common future, reconstructing civility & ‘the capacity for dialogue & encounter’.

For a more nuanced & academic take on Bauman's work:

theoryculturesociety.org/review-zygmunt…