Chapter 2 - Feelings against Reason

Summary

The chapter explores the political imagination of the alternative left during the 1970s and argues that leftists fundamentally reimagined the political map. According to their political thinking, the dominating forces of capitalist rationality structured all aspects of life, leaving no space for feelings, dreams, desires, or fantasies. As forces that might destabilize the rationally ordered world, feelings and desires were, according to leftist thinking, inherently subversive. The chapter first investigates the logic behind this thinking, drawing on theorists popular amongst leftists, such as Gilles Deleuze and Herbert Röttgen. Second, the chapter inquires how leftists mapped their political world, whom they regarded as potential allies in the struggle against rationality, and whom they considered enemies. It discusses the odd alliances that leftists imagined in their struggle against a predominantly male and adult rationality: women, children, and the insane, amongst others. Third, it asks about the remapping's implications, showing how leftists developed a ‘politics of the first person’. Finally, the chapter looks at critics of the ‘politics of irrationality’ within the alternative left.