Solidarity - The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea

Informationen zum Autor Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor Klappentext "From renowned organizers and activists Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor, comes the first in-depth examination of Solidarity-not just as a rallying cry, but as potent political movement with potential to effect lasting change. Solidarity is often invoked, but it is rarely analyzed and poorly understood. Here, two leading activists and thinkers survey the past, present, and future of the concept across borders of nation, identity, and class to ask: how can we build solidarity in an era of staggering inequality, polarization, violence, and ecological catastrophe? Offering a lively and lucid history of the idea-from Ancient Rome through the first European and American socialists and labor organizers, to twenty-first century social movements like Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter-Hunt-Hendrix and Taylor trace the philosophical debates and political struggles that have shaped the modern world. Looking forward, they argue that a clear understanding of how solidarity is built and sustained, and an awareness of how it has been suppressed, is essential to warding off the many crises of our present: right-wing backlash, irreversible climate damage, widespread alienation, loneliness, and despair. Hunt-Hendrix and Taylor insist that solidarity is both a principle and a practice, one that must be cultivated and institutionalized, so that care for the common good becomes the central aim of politics and social life"-- Leseprobe Introduction In 1969, an ambitious and zealous political operative named Kevin Phillips published a book that many now regard as prophetic for its vision of using polarization to fracture and control the American body politic. In The Emerging Republican Majority, the twenty-eight- year-old Harvard graduate detailed what was already becoming known as the conservative “Southern Strategy”—a strategy to secure electoral victories in the South by stoking racial enmity and splitting off white voters. “Considerable historical and theoretical evidence supports the thesis that a liberal Democratic era has ended and that a new era of consolidationist Republicanism has begun,” Phillips observed. The South had been dominated by the Democratic Party since 1877, or the end of Reconstruction, the brief period after the Civil War when the United States government pursued the path of racial and economic equity. Democratic control could be broken and Republican rule hastened along, Phillips argued, by using issues of identity and grievance to pit populations against one another, making questions of platform and policy less central. A veteran of Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign, Phillips was well positioned to influence the Republican Party and the president, to whom his book was warmly dedicated. American voting patterns, Phillips maintained, could be “structured and analyzed” to reveal their logic. “The best structural approach to the changing alignment of American voters,” Phillips wrote, “is a region-by-region analysis designed to unfold the multiple sectional conflicts and group animosities in a logical progression.” Racially and socially polarizing appeals, Phillips predicted, could splinter existing voting blocs and cement conservative victories for generations to come. Phillips did not, of course, invent the politics of divide and conquer; indeed, a century prior, Southern plantation- owning Democrats had successfully deployed such tactics to their own benefit, defending racial hierarchy and fighting back against Reconstruction, setting the stage for the imposition of Jim Crow. But Phillips did help professionalize and normalize the approach. Over a half century after he made his observations, our society remains riven with sectional conflicts and group animosities that a powerful—and bipartisan—elite perpetuate and profit from, financially and politically. Perversely, rising econo...

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Leah Hunt-Hendrix, Astra Taylor
• Editore: Pantheon Schocken Books
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Copertina rigida
• Pubblicazione: 06.02.2024
• EAN: 9780593701249
• ISBN: 978-0-593-70124-9
• Pagine: 432
• Dimensioni: 160 mm x 240 mm x 36 mm
• Categorie: Guide e manuali > Salute; Scienze sociali, diritto, economia > Sociologia > Teorie sociologiche