Dissens · Lukas Ondreka

#279 "Beyond Molotovs": Braucht linke Politik mehr Raum für Gefühle?

·1 hr 29 min·7 clips

Why does the left fail to match the right's emotional politics, and what can a book called 'Beyond Molotovs' reveal about counter-strategies?

1. Dissens podcast host Lukas Ondrejka interviews Aurel Eschmann and Paul Schweitzer, co-editors of Beyond Molotovs: A Visual Handbook of Anti-Authoritarian Strategies, about the affective dimensions of anti-fascist politics. 2. Aurel Eschmann is identified as coming from the circle of the book's editors; Paul Schweitzer is associated with the Kollektiv Orangotango, a network of activists, artists, and educators in Europe and Latin America. 3. The episode's central thesis is that fascism and authoritarianism succeed primarily through emotional and affective mobilization, not rational argument, and that left counter-strategies systematically underestimate this dimension. 4. Aurel argues that for over a hundred years critical theory has recognized that fascism operates at the affective level, yet whenever actual counter-strategies are discussed, the conversation immediately returns to arguments, organizational structures, and policy demands. 5. He asks activists who acknowledge the right's superior emotional tactics why they themselves didn't become fascists, pointing to formative experiential moments — political music festivals, spray cans, the sensation of a briefly liberated society — as the actual mechanism of left politicization. 6. Paul describes his own politicization in the early 2000s through Reclaim the Streets protests and the alter-globalization movement, where music, street art, and collective creative action made political participation feel sensory and enjoyable rather than burdensome. 7. He describes community political education work where presenting a box of paints produces a protest mural more reliably than asking kids what is going wrong politically, illustrating the difference between rational framing and experiential invitation. 8. Aurel introduces two key disclaimers about Beyond Molotovs: first, it does not argue that aesthetic or artistic practice should replace structural organizing or militance, but supplements it; second, it does not advocate a new top-down left populism but rather the opening of spaces for new subjective experiences. 9. The book's 50 chapters were assembled through an open call sent to an existing network of base organizations worldwide, with the editors deliberately not predefining authoritarianism to allow contributors to describe it in their own contexts. 10. Authoritarianism is defined broadly in the book as a social phenomenon present across liberal democracies as well as explicitly authoritarian states, including the European border regime as an example. 11. Paul's personal favorite contribution describes Marielle Franco, the Black lesbian favela city councilwoman from Rio de Janeiro murdered in 2018, and the rapid mobilization of an artist-produced street sign — Rua Marielle Franco — that became a crowdfunded intersectional feminist symbol distributed globally. 12. He adds that his daughter, at age one, raised her fist at a Porto Alegre memorial march and called 'Marielle presente,' describing this as the kind of affective transmission the book is theorizing. 13. Aurel's personal favorite contribution comes from Istanbul, where a feminist artist translated Charlotte Beradt's collection of dreams recorded under the Nazi regime into Turkish and installed public posters during Turkey's authoritarian period and Covid restrictions, inviting passersby to add their own dreams. 14. He argues this was effective because discussing dreams creates a safe channel — 'it is not real criticism in the strict sense' — while reaching the deep psychological register where authoritarianism actually operates. 15. The episode covers the socio-psychological theory of affect, distinguishing it from emotion as more reactive and more useful for analyzing how individual feelings connect to social and political structures. 16. Aurel explains that authoritarian parties like the AfD are immune to policy failure because their real affective offer is the satisfaction of humiliating institutions seen as elite-captured, an offer that is delivered even when no legislation passes. 17. He applies Spinoza's principle — that an affect can only be overcome by a stronger affect — to left counter-strategy, citing Lula's 2022 Brazilian campaign built on images of hugs and language of care as a partial success. 18. However, he warns that purely emotional electoral campaigns risk producing disillusionment cycles, using Obama's 'hope' campaign followed by Trump as the cautionary pattern. 19. The tone is academic but accessible, conducted in German, with frequent personal anecdotes from both guests and the host. 20. Listeners interested in political theory, anti-fascist strategy, and the intersection of art and activism will find this most rewarding; those seeking practical step-by-step protest tactics may find the theoretical framing too abstract.

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