The blurring of image and reality may enable counter-speculative interruption of culture wars

Evidence

A blurring of the line between image and reality has been seen as one of the most nefarious consequences of our time’s speculative politics: from the growing spread of “misinformation” and populist indictments of “fake news” to the pernicious conspiracies that are increasingly swirled against scientific evidence of all kinds. But what if this very blurring also opens up new paths for interrupting the disastrous cycle of culture wars produced by speculative politics? Contemplating different collective ways of imagining the future, Karl Mannheim (1966) suggested that utopia must be considered distinct from ideology because, while the former “breaks the bonds of the existing social order, the latter aims to preserve it” (Bottici 2014, 161). Is fighting capital with distracting videos and stranded proprietary algorithms offering an alternative to the menacing unreality of culture wars? And are these struggles a spur to a political community endeavoring to be a more autonomous guardian of the unknown? — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 307

Categorization

• QUESTION: The chapter stakes its positive case on whether the same volatility trained into citizens can be turned back on speculative capital — assess critically in the final verdict.