What do Paris Hilton, Grand Theft Auto, Las Vegas, and a McDonald's
commercial have in common with progressive politics? Not much. And, as
Stephen Duncombe brilliantly argues, this is part of what¹s wrong with
progressive politics. According to Duncombe, culture‹and popular fantasy‹can
help us define and actualize a new political aesthetic: a kind of
dreampolitik, created not simply to further existing progressive political
agendas but help us imagine new ones.
Dream makes the case for a political strategy that embraces a new set of
tools. Although fantasy and spectacle have become the lingua franca of our
time, Duncombe points out that liberals continue to depend upon sober reason
to guide them. Instead, they need to learn how to communicate in today¹s
spectacular vernacular‹not merely as a tactic but as a new way of thinking
about and acting out politics. Learning from Las Vegas, however, does not
mean adopting its values, as Duncombe demonstrates in outlining plans for
what he calls "ethical spectacle."
An electrifying new vision of progressive politics by a lifelong political
activist and thinker, Dream is a twenty-first-century manifesto for the
left, reclaiming the tools of hidden persuaders in the name of spectacular
change.
Praise for Dream:
Two opposite conclusions can be drawn from the fact that enjoyment is a political factor in late capitalism, that its politics are politics of fantasies: either a purist withdrawal into dessicated rationality or... or what Stephen Duncombe proposes, beating the enemy at its own terrain and thereby opening up a new field for radical politics. The book is simply the sine qua non for any renewal of Leftist politics - a must for anyone who wants the Left to overcome its purist shame!
-- Slavoj Zizek
Imagination is central to all successful political projects and yet the mainstream left has allowed its imaginative faculty to atrophy in recent years. Duncombe shows how the methods of some of today’s most creative social movements can teach the left how to dream again and, by exercising its imagination, to create a winning progressive politics.
—Michael Hardt, co-author of Empire and Multitude
Boring speeches, denunciations of things that everybody else enjoys, a dour ethos of self-sacrifice – no wonder no one wants to be a progressive activist! If you’re left-of-center and tired of losing, you need to read this book immediately. Stephen Duncombe – one of the best political writers of his generation – makes an impassioned, eloquent and entertaining case for a joyful aesthetic of dissent.
-- Liza Featherstone, author of Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers’ Rights at Wal-Mart and Students Against Sweatshops
Dogged by our dour moralism, it's high time we improved the quality of life on the Left. Duncombe's splendid plea for a politics rich in wit, sensuality, and aspiration will light up the path ahead.
-- Andrew Ross, author of Fast Boat to China and No Respect
The old saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same results couldn't be more appropriate for today's politics. Dream inspires Progressives to fantasize and re-imagine a new politics and drive to make it reality.
-- Lisa Witter, general manager and executive vice president, Fenton Communications
Duncombe's is a fresh and original voice that will be welcome in American culture.
-- Marshall Berman, author of On the Town and All That is Solid Melts into Air
