ELEANOR DOBSON reflects on a stark visual record of the violent desecration of Tutankhamun’s mummified remains
Dream or Nightmare
Critique of communicating radical politics flies in the face of progressive reason
THE STRUGGLE CONTUINUES: ‘La beauté est dans la rue’ (Beauty is in the street) the Situationist slogan at the London 2018 demo against Trump and (left) as first designed by Atelier Populaire in Paris in 1968
[Central/main pic credit: Steve Bowbrick/Creative Commons]
RUTH AYLETT appreciates the rich blend of poetry and music that accompanied the launch of the Morning Star’s anthology of poetry, Who We Are
WANJA KIMANI explores the many bonds of community experience expressed in in the bold and colourful imagery of a new mural
New releases from Keeley, Lucinda Williams and Ye Vagabonds
JAN WOOLF ponders the works and contested reputation of the West German sculptor and provocateur, who believed that everybody is potentially an artist
PAUL DONOVAN enjoys a brutally honest rags to riches memoir of the actor’s life, even if it clearly lacks any political insight
ORIGINALLY published in 2007 as Dream, this polemic from Stephen Duncombe has been retitled to reflect the recent resurgence of ultra-conservative politics.
Fascinating but flimsily argued, it calls for a reassessment of progressive approaches to campaigning and persuading. Duncombe’s thesis is that the left tends to “uncritically privilege rationality, reason and self-revelatory truth,” while the right has shifted to a more successful approach based on improvisation, spectacle and “dreampolitik” — the creation of political fantasies — and it is argued that we live in an age of fantasy.
During the George W Bush administration, a presidential aide suggested the world was analysed by “the reality-based community” while reality was created and acted upon by conservatives. Duncombe believes the left is drifting into irrelevance due to our preference for “the solace of the known” and reverence for logical evidence.
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