Isolated, Scared, and Furious: Welcome to the Age of Hyperpolitics

In the last decade and a half, society has got vastly more politicised: Occupy, Black Lives Matter, the Me Too Movement and many other movements besides mobilised hundreds of millions of people around the world.

So where are the massive organisations that big mobilisations brought in the 20th century? They don’t exist. For all the increased political activity, society hasn’t become much more organised.

This has produced what Anton Jäger calls ‘hyperpolitics’. He’s the author of Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicisation without Political Consequences as well as a columnist at The New York Times and a lecturer at Oxford University.

He explained to Richard Hames how we got so isolated, why fascism isn’t even the biggest threat right now, and whether the worldwide organising around Palestine, anti-ICE uprisings in the US and the Gen Z Revolutions have already hurtled us into yet another era of political struggle.

Do Your Own Research is a new show from Novara Media about the systems that make the modern world possible.

Music by Iglooghost.