The Rose of the People

• This article discusses the meaning of “people” today at the moment of emergence of new forms of fascism and populisms. The main thesis is that we are facing rather the disappearance of the people precisely when its meaning becomes more and more empty the more it is performed and spectacularized as “the” people or “a” people. The voiding of the people entails not merely the emptying of its meaning once “people” become public and audience, once they have been converted into the numbers and statistics of population censuses, reduced to an avatar and a simulacrum. Rather, the people has a face, indeed it is comprised of millions of faces; the faces of the rest of the people, the leftovers, the remainders. I would like, then, to propose a change of focus in how we tackle today’s political questions. Instead of insisting on the question of the people, or of a people, or even of people, I will look at the faceless faces of the many who, since Greek antiquity, were called oclos, ochlos, the populace, the Pöbel – the rabble. For that I will let myself be guided by the poem “The Rose of the People” by the Brazilian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Filosofi, etik och religion -- Filosofi (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Philosophy, Ethics and Religion -- Philosophy (hsv//eng)

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Östersjö- och Östeuropaforskning

Baltic and East European studies

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