The “shift to vibes” is right on target, and also contextualizes the one area of leftwing culture — culture, because there is no more “politics” as such; only more or less popular social organizations surrounding shared symbols, the ideological contents of which are secondary to their emotional potency — which has solved the same problem of postliberal malaise, using the exact same solution, as ardent Trumpism: the “free Palestine” movement, or perhaps “encampment culture.”
Like Trumpism, the movement is a gathered fist; an ideology whose purpose is nothing more than the powerful emotions — anger, pain, hatred, triumph — it awakens in its adherents. Like Trumpism, it is the reclamation of libido from the dominant culture’s alienation of the body (within the cerebral academy, the online social world) and the self (within an economic system where all things are fungible, a social hierarchy where individuals are constantly sorted by GPA, resume or other utterly generic ideal). It is the rejection of a “system” that has failed not primarily economically (although it has also failed economically) but spiritually — it has failed to offer either individual purpose or collective meaning. We should be deeply frightened that the most vital elements across the political chasm share an apocalyptic vision: “We are the exceptional generation that has learned the truth of human history for the first time."
The article critiques the dominance of "vibes" in politics and culture while itself relying on a vibes-based argument—loose associations, cultural anecdotes, and rhetorical flourishes rather than concrete data or structured analysis. It gestures at a shift without rigorously proving it, embodying the very phenomenon it claims to diagnose.
The “shift to vibes” is right on target, and also contextualizes the one area of leftwing culture — culture, because there is no more “politics” as such; only more or less popular social organizations surrounding shared symbols, the ideological contents of which are secondary to their emotional potency — which has solved the same problem of postliberal malaise, using the exact same solution, as ardent Trumpism: the “free Palestine” movement, or perhaps “encampment culture.”
Like Trumpism, the movement is a gathered fist; an ideology whose purpose is nothing more than the powerful emotions — anger, pain, hatred, triumph — it awakens in its adherents. Like Trumpism, it is the reclamation of libido from the dominant culture’s alienation of the body (within the cerebral academy, the online social world) and the self (within an economic system where all things are fungible, a social hierarchy where individuals are constantly sorted by GPA, resume or other utterly generic ideal). It is the rejection of a “system” that has failed not primarily economically (although it has also failed economically) but spiritually — it has failed to offer either individual purpose or collective meaning. We should be deeply frightened that the most vital elements across the political chasm share an apocalyptic vision: “We are the exceptional generation that has learned the truth of human history for the first time."
The article critiques the dominance of "vibes" in politics and culture while itself relying on a vibes-based argument—loose associations, cultural anecdotes, and rhetorical flourishes rather than concrete data or structured analysis. It gestures at a shift without rigorously proving it, embodying the very phenomenon it claims to diagnose.
Yeah but we really should avoid it. It makes us individually and as a culture flat.