Killing a Future

Two weeks ago, I published a few articles to begin the publication. I believe there is no better place, today, to continue this conversation than through a chilling and prescient comment in Ta'Neishi Coates' The Message:

The fear instilled by this [woke] rising culture is not for what it does today but what it augurs for tomorrow - a different world in which the boundaries of humanity are not so easily drawn and enforced...but their Redemption is not about honoring a past. It is about killing a future.

The power of Coates' statement is in its brevity. We are left to explore what other futures might arrive. When looking considering the recent works of Wendy Brown and Melinda Cooper, and even Francis Fukuyma, the future that looms ahead seems to be a return to exploitation, with a twist. Exploitation not of a race, but of races. Not a people, but peoples. Not a gender, but genders. Religions, classes, creeds. A future of positive possibilities replaced by an age meant to rectify a perceived wrong by destroying possibilities for all but a select few. What might come in the future is unknown, as we are in what Gramsci describes in his Prison Notebooks as an interregnum. A period between the future possibilities we grew up with and the future impossibilities now facing our world. What is true is that to navigate this interregnum, we must understand what the possibilities were to dissect what future is being killed.

Liberal Democracy and Future Possibilities

Liberal democracy represents a governmental system that places a strong emphasis on freedom and equality for all individuals. Its defining characteristics include the rule of law, universal suffrage, and the protection of civil rights. Crucially, for all under it's domain.

There is a distinction between different forms of governing and liberal democracy I have covered in a previous post, but what is important now concerns how deeply embedded liberal democracy is to the 17th and 18th-century Enlightenment thinkers. John Locke, often regarded as the father of liberalism, was a pivotal figure who asserted the natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Locke contended that individuals are born free from political control by others and can only consent to be governed by political systems. Though I disagree with the nature of this social contract, that is besides the point.

The very purpose of these governments, according to Locke and others following his thoughts, is to protect the people, meaning no government could legitimately enslave or steal from its citizens. These principles, advocating for individual rights and the consent of the governed, were later combined with democratic governance. Governments then were meant not to suppress or contain, but to liberate - promote the freedom of people. That is the liberal in liberal democracy.

In the context of liberal democracy, "a good future" for succeeding generations is envisioned as a world devoid of conflict, allowing for the freedom of movement, the safety and security needed to engage ones mind, creativity, and contributions to the world. Where human rights are sacrosanct and social progress a constant. This aspirational future also encompasses a sustainable world where the needs of the present generation are met equitably without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. A people, a world, thrives when the old plant trees for the generations they shall never meet. Not construct cages for the generations they hope to suppress.

Future Impossibilities and Vindictiveness

Any democracy, let alone liberal democracy, can not survive without the basic levels of decency and empathy required. In brief, to plant a tree who's shade we will never sit under. To recognize a sacrifice now will ease struggle in the future. To offer support as friends and neighbors. We enter another foray, a conflict in familiar lands. A right of passage for America's youth as familiar as the high school prom. We are destroying many, many futures.

This new governing form did not come out of nowhere. Rather, it is the top blown off of what has been building for decades, not only on the right, and not only from neoliberal rationality: namely, the historically outmoded character of liberal democracy. The means of the new regime—bold power politics detached from the restraints of law, balance of powers, majority rule, or concern with conflicts of interest—revealed to all how easy liberal democracy is to dismantle but also simply, now, to set aside. - Wendy Brown - After Liberal Democracy

Radical Hope

In response to the theft of futures, academics Ashley Nickels and Camille Tinnin offer liberatory possibilities in the form of radical hope. In an effort to generate your own thought and reflections:

Radical hope offers an approach that bridges theoretical and historical insights with actionable strategies. It can serve as a catalyst for collective action, enabling communities to confront systemic oppression while imagining and constructing just alternatives. We examine four theoretical and practical dimensions of radical hope: envisioning beyond the present, collective resilience, moral anchoring, and sustained engagement. In doing so, we argue for integrating radical hope as a transformative approach, particularly for public administration scholars and practitioners as they respond to threats to democracy, including challenges to values of social equity and inclusion.

I leave you with this to think about. My next post will cover radical hope and how we might focus on opportunities for change in nihilistic times. We'll read some Wendy Brown, Max Weber, and Marcus Aurelius. Yes, that Marcus Aurelius.

Until next time please leave your comments and feedback, stay safe, and be well.

Andrew "The Professor"