Many have lost all trust in politics. The protests against vaccination and anti-virus rules however turn this into madness.
My Column in „Social Europe“, December 2021.
The diagnosis of a ‘split’ in society is commonplace today—societies are shaken by discord and divisions are intensifying. The claims differ in details but on some basic assumptions there is usually agreement.
First, there are increasingly testy disputes, largely along a traditional left-right axis but sometimes deviating from it. ‘Culture wars’ break out over gender issues, racism and anti-racism, immigration and who belongs to the ‘us’—even lifestyles. Pundits talk about societies breaking into hostile ‘tribes’.
There is also a degree of unanimity in the analyses about alienation from the conventional political system—an anger that ‘they are not interested in us at all’—especially in underprivileged segments of the population, including the old working classes but also the marginalised lower middle class and the ‘underclass’.
These who are victims of growing insecurity feel that they can no longer rely on solidarity: ‘You can’t count on anyone anymore.’ Many people say ‘I just take look out for myself now’ in a depressed, negative individualism. These social milieux are then particularly appealing to right-wing populists and extremists who proclaim: ‘Yes, no one listens to you—but I am your voice.’ The revolt against reason weiterlesen