Nationalist myth functions as insurance hedging individual anxiety about uncertainty

Evidence

The politics of neoliberalism might seem at first sight more aligned with the globalized logic of finance, but as the rising tides of right-­wing populism endorse finance’s deeper speculative orientation, nationalism provides the insurance needed for uncertainty to “embed itself” in speculative communities. Disavowal of the neoliberal promise and anxiety on the individual level are hedged by shared nationalist myths circulating in the community, energizing imagined bonds among its members and allowing them to “short” their governments (thus administering some of George Soros’s own medicine). It is precisely in this tension between the closure of nationalist myth and the openness of the speculative imagination that the convergence of financial capital and neopopulism takes place. Seen through this prism, the epoch’s culture and trade wars, and its populist leaders’ “govern-­by-­chaos” mantra, are far from contradictory to globalized market principles—­rather, they fundamentally embrace finance’s intrinsic speculative imagination. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 454

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: ‘shorting their governments’ — how voting and nationalism function as a speculative hedge against one’s own political-economic position; a bridge between finance and electoral behavior worth an essay.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader theme of how speculation reshapes the social imagination — here extended from markets to the political sphere. — connects to: Nationalist myths function as symbolic insurance against unbearable uncertainty. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 241; Nationalist myth functions as collective insurance that lets populists embrace radical uncertainty — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 294; Ethno-nationalism serves as actuarial insurance whose payouts are distributed unequally — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 295

Broader Connections

• Nationalist myths function as symbolic insurance against unbearable uncertainty. #corroborates (0.98) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 241
• Nationalist myth functions as collective insurance that lets populists embrace radical uncertainty #expands (0.75) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 294
• Ethno-nationalism serves as actuarial insurance whose payouts are distributed unequally #qualifies (0.72) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 295