Toward a Diagnostics of the Present: Popular Culture, Post-Apocalyptic Macro-Dystopia, and the Petrification of Politics

Abstract

According to Fredric Jameson (2016: 1), “we have seen a marked diminution in the production of new utopias over the last decades (along with an overwhelming increase in all manner of conceivable dystopias, most of which look monotonously alike)”. This assessment is seconed by Jürgen Habermas (2019 [1985]: 161) who draws attention to the problematic consequences of such a lack of utopian thinking. He writes that “when the utopian oases dry up, we are left with a desert of banalities and cluelessness”.i The present chapter addresses how a dominance of dystopian narratives in contemporary popular culture together with a lack of utopian alternatives reflects a petrification of politics that reifies a received status-quo rather than enabling necessary changes. Ultimately, I argue our utopian potentials are wasted in hyper-commercialized technological hypes rather than allowing them to foment political mobilisation.