Social Reconfigurations of Debt-Ridden Societies

Indebtedness as a human condition, and financial rationality behind it, can be found at the core of certain sociopolitical crises. This chapter looks at the emptying of meaningful politics, at the depersonalization of our ordinary lives in mainstream media, at the relativization of language, at the debasement of emotions in political debate, and at the demise of history as a tool to unmask the precarious ontology left by the global financial crisis. By unpacking these discussions, we want to explore the new countering forms of resistance: contentious politics, systemic suspiciousness against expert voices, a thirst for strong communitarian truths, the emotionalization of political protest, and the cognitive attempt to close the gap from reality as told from reality as experienced.