Politics of Ecstasy Must we stop obsessing about how faithfully our anti-authoritarian practices conform to certain ideological principles and, instead, try to understand how they produce moments of exultation, of “ecstasy”? Looking at our battlegrounds through the lens of ecstasy lights up shifting visions and narratives. While the regulation image of us decked in our best principles might appear unblemished, most of us writing for this issue have found the image of us stripped down to our ecstasies less flattering. So much for our plans to destabilise capitalism with our seismic passions – at the moment, our ecstasies are adding cement to its foundations… Here we are again, digging through innards – but we try to do it without resentment and without a sense of doom. We’re not sure we have succeeded. Also, do not forget our eternal disclaimer: however self-assured our assertions might at times appear, we’re not writing the law here, we’re not revealing the truth: we’re experimenting with writing about stuff that we find urgent and it often means finding our way in the dark, tendons in our arms thinly stretched. But we try to hold hands. |