On Monday June 24, 2024 8pm, Spui25 (Amsterdam) there will be a lecture by Alan Finlayson (University of East Anglia, UK), moderated by Marc Tuters (Mediastudies, UvA).

The lecture will look at how the disruptive affordances and practices of global digital culture relate to political reconfigurations symptomatic of a broader crisis of liberalism. Alan Finlayson will explain what “reactionary digital politics” is, how it is shaped by “ideological entrepreneurs,” and how this is reconfiguring our understanding of what it is to be political.

On digital platforms a distinct form of reactionary political ideology has crystallised around hostility to “liberal” egalitarianism, denunciations of contemporary culture and calls for a return to “natural” hierarchies. It draws on long-standing themes in reactionary, conservative and far-right politics but reshapes and reorganises them in particular ways, inviting followers to experience themselves as a particular kind of heroic political saviour.

Finlayson will explain what “reactionary digital politics” is, how it is shaped by “ideological entrepreneurs” (selling political ideas through a promise to reveal “secrets” and expose “the truth” of “what’s really going on”), and how this is reconfiguring our understanding of what it is to be political. Online, Finlayson will argue, we are invited to experience politics not as how citizens bargain over interests but as a personal “hero’s journey” which promises to transform our individual wellbeing.

More info here: https://www.spui25.nl/programma/diagonalism-and-the-crisis-of-liberalism.