(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
People feel unsafe. But if we on the left continue to yawn at the right-
Despite the radical leaders' anti-democratic statements, the truth is that most people – in today's right-wing Norway, the USA and Europe – feel safest with them.
Chantal Mouffe claims in her new book Towards a Green Democratic Revolution that politics is not just about good arguments. It is about feelingsEven though Trump in particular destroys the lives of the most vulnerable in the United States, he gives them security. The same is true in Europe: Right-wing radicals and fascists appeal to a sense of home, family, nation and frykt. People want to be safe, they want to be seen. The left needs to learn to see these feelings.
Many of us actually look down on 'emotional' politics.
On the left, it is believed that being right is enough. In fact, many of us look down on 'emotional' politics. A striking example is the 2019 British election. Although Jeremy Corbyn had a good and careful plan for the British people, he lost. Why did the Conservatives win? Because they appealed to emotions: They practically only had two slogans ("Take back control" and "Get Brexit done"), but as banal as these were, they gave people confidence.
It doesn't matter if you're right. You also have to appeal to people's emotions. That's why we see fascists and right-wing radicals winning elections, even though they often lie and are wrong. Politics is not just about arguments, but about giving people a feeling of being heard. This was also the strategy of Vice President James David Vance famous speech in Munich at the security conference in February, where he repeatedly mentioned that most people needed to feel heard by the 'elite'.
Democracy
Mouffe will appeal to emotions in a democratic context. The fact that right-wing radicals use people's emotions to feed false ideas about "the people" and "culture" can be changed. For the truths that we on the left are aware of, but do not give an emotional dimension, are the reasons for people's insecurity. It can often be linked to a lack of democracy and class affiliation.
Workers are now increasingly working on a temporary basis and at the mercy of the market. The quality of life of the poor means little if it does not benefit the economy. The inhabitants of the global south 'pay' for our abundance.
Few are heard. Democracy is not just an idea we must implement. It is something that must take effect, appeal to actual people. Otherwise, democracy is just a sound with nine letters.
There is a coincidence between the economically and the ecologically vulnerable.
Our vulnerability needs a language that politicians understand. Otherwise, right-wing radicals will continue to win elections, no matter how wrong they actually are. Politically, being right means little if you lack consideration for emotions. Mouffe shares here Pierre bourdieus thought, that true ideas have no appeal in themselves. Something can be as true as it wants, but without emotion it means nothing.
A green, socialist revolution
Vulnerable people, instability and exploitation: These struggles are central to both socialism and ecology. For Mouffe, socialism is not primarily economic. It is about a radical democracy which gives power and a voice to as many as possible. But that doesn't happen by feeding people lies like the British Conservatives or the far-right did and do. Socialism as a project is rather about giving people a voice they can use themselves.
How to fit Ecologyone into this? Mouffe, like the Japanese Marxist Kohei Saito or Pope Francis, points out that there is a coincidence between the economically and the ecologically vulnerable. The global south is both the poorest and most vulnerable to drought, natural disasters and uncultivable land. The fight against capitalism and for an ecological alternative are therefore two sides of the same coin. Not least, radical-democratic marginal groups – feminists, anti-racists, LGBT+ and anti-colonialists – must also include animals, rivers and ecosystems.
Far enough?
I would like to point out that Mouffe does not go far enough. She describes ecology and radical democracy as two struggles that can unite, but not mustn't unite. Other thinkers – such as the aforementioned Saito [see separate article] – are more radical in showing that capitalism can never be ecological or just. On the other hand, Mouffe claims that it is actually possible to have an emission-free and 'green' capitalism. But her proposal is still to try to unite class struggle and ecology. The problem with this, however, is that the lack of a necessary connection between class divisions, eco-crisis and capitalism means that the argument in the book is not as powerful. Had Mouffe supplemented her argument with an analysis that linked capitalism and eco-crisis more closely together, the book would have been better.
Yet her emphasis on emotions and right-wing radicalismns success is important. Therefore, if we on the left are to continue fighting for a green, democratic revolution, Mouffe's contribution, with some corrections, must absolutely be part of such a movement.
