What Happens to the Disappointed When Social Movements Fail? (w/ Sara Marcus)
Current Affairs26 Tammi 2024

What Happens to the Disappointed When Social Movements Fail? (w/ Sara Marcus)

Sara Marcus is the author of Political Disappointment: A Cultural History from Reconstruction to the AIDS Crisis. A lot of studies of social movements look at movement triumphs, but Marcus is interested in what happens when people fail, when they throw themselves into a cause and (at least in the short term) it doesn't react its goals. Often, she argues, disappointment ends up forming the basis of new culture, expressing itself through art and music, sometimes in subtle ways. There is also a sense of waiting, as movement participants try to hang on until the historical moment is ready for them to act again. She looks, for instance, at Reconstruction, where a nascent multiracial democracy was destroyed before it could be secured, and the AIDS crisis, where activists went through long years of bleak hopelessness.

Today's activists suffer plenty of disappointments of their own, and as they sigh and try to figure out how to move forward, Marcus encourages them to look backward, to see how things looked to previous generations who were trying to change the world and usually not succeeding. Ironically, by learning how to be disappointed we may help ourselves become more optimistic and determined.

"Attending to the ways those we accept as forebears lingered with loss and found new forms and practices to accommodate, process, and transform their disappointment, we, too, can seek forms and practices suitable to our time, working in coalition with the dead as well as the living." — Sara Marcus

Listeners may also be interested in Sam Allison-Natale's essay "Keeping The Faith: Socialism In The Waiting Place," which discusses related issues.

Jaksot(600)

Liberal Media Helped Destroy Gaza (w/ Adam Johnson)

Liberal Media Helped Destroy Gaza (w/ Adam Johnson)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Adam Johnson is a media analyst and co-host of the podcast Citations Needed, whose work has appeare...

21 Huhti 59min

Trump Has No Idea What He’s Doing (w/ Mouin Rabbani)

Trump Has No Idea What He’s Doing (w/ Mouin Rabbani)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Mouin Rabbani is a Middle East analyst and researcher, and one of the most incisive commentators on...

18 Huhti 39min

Ben and Jerry's Co-Founder Takes on America's War Machine (w/ Ben Cohen)

Ben and Jerry's Co-Founder Takes on America's War Machine (w/ Ben Cohen)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership  Ben Cohen is the co-founder, along with Jerry Greenfield, of the Ben and Jerry's ice cream company...

16 Huhti 45min

How Media Silences Anti-War Voices (w/ Amy Goodman)

How Media Silences Anti-War Voices (w/ Amy Goodman)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Amy Goodman is the longtime host of Democracy Now!, the independent news program she helped launch ...

12 Huhti 36min

California’s Democratic Field Is Embarrassingly Weak (w/ Dr. Butch Ware)

California’s Democratic Field Is Embarrassingly Weak (w/ Dr. Butch Ware)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Dr. Butch Ware is a historian, public intellectual, and the Green Party candidate for Governor of C...

9 Huhti 41min

Israel’s Most Genocidal Law Yet (w/ Jasper Nathaniel)

Israel’s Most Genocidal Law Yet (w/ Jasper Nathaniel)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership  Jasper Nathaniel is an independent journalist who recently returned from documenting Israeli settl...

2 Huhti 1h 1min

Iran Historian: War Makes The Government "MORE REPRESSIVE" (w/ Afshin Matin-Asgari)

Iran Historian: War Makes The Government "MORE REPRESSIVE" (w/ Afshin Matin-Asgari)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Afshin Matin-Asgari is an Iranian historian and professor of Middle East history at California Stat...

28 Maalis 46min

Current Affairs Is Going to Cuba

Current Affairs Is Going to Cuba

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Donald Trump is trying to starve the island nation into submission, but an international coalition ...

22 Maalis 15min

Suosittua kategoriassa Komedia

nikotellen
anni-jaajo
antin-matka
tuplakaak
olipa-kerran-otsikko
ihan-oikeesti
rss-saarinen-shoy
antin-palautepalvelu
puurojengi
antin-elokuvakerho
everypodi
rss-kaheli
naakkavalta
kasper-ja-mikko-suomen-suosituin-podcast
ela-viitti
rss-nikotellen
rss-kuukka-vehvilainen-hartlin
rss-ruokacast
mysteeripodcast
rss-sami-jorma