Speculation re-enchants social groups by projecting failed promises onto shared visions of the future

Evidence

What do speculative agents stand to gain from their wholehearted acceptance of failed promises if not their inclusion in capitalism’s reward system? In what follows, I suggest that while the speculative imagination leaves a set of political promises unfulfilled, it does nonetheless project those broken promises onto a collective realm that is conjured around new political myths and shared narratives of the future. In doing so, speculation pries open possibilities that swell over social and political life. As I will show in part 3, this radically different understanding of speculating subjects and their motivations can lead to both regressive and progressive “collectivizations” of uncertainty—and to different corresponding types of speculative communities. Speculation absolves uncertainty by breathing new life into social groups that have suffered loss of certainty, security, and stability, thus re-enchanting collectivities. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 63

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core thesis passage defining the speculative agent’s reward: not inclusion in capitalism’s reward system, but collective re-enchantment via shared future-narratives—the heart of ‘homo speculans’.
• DEEPTHINKING: The passage’s core move—that groups accept broken promises because speculation projects failure onto collective myths—is dense and paradigm-shifting, resisting one-sentence summary and underpinning the whole book’s argument about financialized populism.
• XREF: connects to: Collective imagination, not individual gamblers, shapes our shared wagers on the future — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 552; Accepting a failed promise binds investors into collective mythic futures — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 96