The Populist Imagination comes in a timely moment. The 20th issue of Open, the cahier on art and the public domain published by NAi, is a collection of essays dealing with “the role of myth, narratives and identity in politics”. Contributions include authors as diverse as Argentinian political theorist Ernesto Laclau, Italian writer collective Wu Ming, American media scholar Stephen Duncombe, and French literature professor Yves Citton, among others.
The subject of populism – and, more generally, myth-making – is especially urgent these days, mostly because of two world-scale phenomena: the emergence of political figures and movements that are strongly characterized by a mythological appeal, and the mass-mediated channeling of collective imagination sustaining such figures.
On both ends of the political spectrum, both President of the United States Barack Obama and Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders represent media-savvy interpreters of widespread heart-felt emotions, supported by a matching rhetorics of desire and imagination.
Be it the change promised by Obama or the evil forces of communism which Silvio Berlusconi claims to protect Italy from, from the United States to Europe we’re all experiencing a return to epic narration in politics.
Internet, social media, and a general decentralization of political discourse have made populism a widespread phenomenon, giving unprecedented space to previously marginal factions. Geert Wilders’ PVV party in the Netherlands, Lega Nord in Italy, and the Tea Party in the US, show how similar rhetorics have caught on throughout the Western world.