Yes, I’d say we’re describing different phases of the same story. Those earlier counterpublics were structured, expansive, and often deeply rooted in civic institutions. What we’ve lost is the capacity to sustain that kind of political identity today.
The shift toward zero-sum, reactive identity isn’t accidental. It emerges from a system that has eroded organising spaces, defunded civic infrastructure, and reduced politics to performance and perception. That’s the vacuum I’m focused on.
We agree on the relationship between organisation and identities. On the causes: I am not sure elsewhere, but in Italy it was a very specific choice citizens made when they massively and repeatedly voted for Berlusconi. People were fed up with the 'old' system and its contradictions..1/2
..and Berlusconi sold them a world where they could stop caring about public affairs & only care about private ones; a sort of perverted, scaled up Mandevillian dystopia. But fact is, people knew it and bought the dream gladly. No big neoliberal conspiracy, but a wrong choice freely made.
THIS ^ All of it, and: if the political establishment can stay focused on identity, identity can stand in for any analysis/discussion of class.
Among individuals this can become a sort of Narcissistic reflecting pool-encouraged by algorithmic social media-which looks extremely corrosive of the possibility of solidarity. It appears to me that especially in younger organizing spaces this often supplants discussion of material conditions.
"I will fight to the death to protect your identity but I have no idea whether you are housed or had a meal today"
So I don’t idealise collective identity per se, but I do argue that without structures to hold it, identity becomes polarising and manipulable.
“Mummy, I’m sick of calling people names - how can I have a mature debate online??” 👆
I would like we stop looking at the US to set the progressive agenda. They are not very good at fighting fascism to start with. In fact, they don't do much. And the US is not England, Sweden or Quebec.