Politics of Fear, Practices of Hope

Book excerpt: Politics of Fear, Practices of Hope is about the relationship between two hugely influential ideas in political life: fear and hope. How are cultures of resistance nurtured within an environment of paranoia and social paralysis? Stefan Skrimshire argues that grass-roots responses to a politics of fear coincide with an explosion of interest in the quasi-religious themes of apocalypse, eschatology and utopia in cultural life. Where visions of a better future are replaced by the acceptance of a fearful present - a state of 'war with no end' - this is an important examination of the beliefs that underpin our capacity to hope.