Hyperpolitikk: Ekstrem politisering uten politiske følger

by Anton Jäger, Eivind Lilleskjæret (Translator), Cathrine Holst (Afterword)

Anton Jäger (f. 1994) er en belgisk idéhistoriker som har gjort seg bemerket som forsker på politisk teori og populismen i etterkant av finanskrisen. I denne boka setter han ord på vår tid, hyperpolitikkens tidsalder, og viser hvordan alt har blitt politisk: maten vi spiser, klærne vi har på oss og bilen vi kjører – i alt vi gjør tvinges vi til å ta politiske standpunkt. Paradoksalt nok, skriver Jäger, får ikke denne politiseringen noen politiske konsekvenser.

Massepolitikkens periode, frem til 1980-tallet, var preget av sterk institusjonalisering og bred folkelig deltakelse i fagforeninger, politiske partier og ideelle organisasjoner. De siste tiårene har disse store politiske fellesskapene forvitret og blitt avløst av en post- og antipolitisk tilstand hvor de sosiale og institusjonelle nettverkene er oppløst. Motstanden mot det bestående har samtidig blomstret, og i dag står individet alene tilbake.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Philosophy, History, Theory, Essays, Political Science

158 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2023

About the author

Anton Jäger is een Belgisch historicus en publicist. Zijn werk handelt over ideeëngeschiedenis, meer bepaald de verhouding tussen kapitalisme en democratie. Jäger studeerde aan de universiteiten van Essex en Cambridge en doctoreerde in 2020 aan die laatste universiteit.
______
Anton Jäger (b.1994) is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Catholic University of Leuven. He has published widely on populism, basic income, and the contemporary crisis of democracy. His work has appeared in Jacobin, the Guardian, and the New Statesman.

Reviews

[Nathan Shuherk · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice little primer on why we are insane. Culture is dissolving and we’re drowning, but Jager gives some floaties so we can tread out in the deep while watching the ship sink

[poetic interludes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes you read a book and think to yourself, “this should’ve been an article”, and this is one of those books. This genuinely could’ve been a Substack article lol. I liked the author's points on U.S. mass incarceration towards the end of the book. And I largely agree with his analysis of our current political moment, wherein protest size and frequency are trending upwards, yet armed conflict, meaningful policy changes, etc., are all trending downwards. Essentially shedding light on and analyzing the frustrating phenomena of rising “trendy” political engagement (ig infographics as activism, futile protests, etc) that result in zero institutional or radical policy changes.

There were still some good points in this book, but it read like a compilation of random essays and points with no clear direction. And a decent chunk of the book is the author referencing other people's works, which felt more like a literature review. I don’t know, nothing in this was very revelatory, it sorta seems like something everyone just internally knows

[Dante]

As a willingly embarrassed fan of ‘situatonism’, there is much I nodded knowingly along to in his concise diagnostics of contemporary distractions and political decomposition (although the periodisation baffled me a bit); as an advocate for the imperatives of political ‘organisation’, I can’t fault the sincere call to activity. But, even for a commendably short book, the trite dismissals of social movements combined with a lack of committed partisanship leaves me both un-moved and confused. Perhaps I’m not the audience, so please excuse the ‘hyperpolitics’.

How any of this squares with writing, in the year of 2026, a regular column for…the New York Times, a better politics-doer will have to explain to me.

[Andrew]

Let’s start with the obvious. Part of the reason that Jager got all the plaudits he did is that these are the thoughts we’ve all had, as confirmed by a classy Euro-academic, who I assumed had serious eyeglasses (turns out he doesn’t). So it’s not groundbreaking, but it is succinct. Like Mark Fisher or David Graeber, he has a way of crystallizing things for the here and now -- which is to say, we live in a world in which everything is suffused with politics, without any stakes whatsoever, in which you can make absolutely maximalist claims without ever being held accountable for them, in which old people think the police were defunded because some they/thems demanded it, in which people consider posting to be activism and their hyper-niche online bubble to represent the polis writ large, in which Pride is a riot, but the funny thing about riots is they are utterly impotent screams. You get the idea. You probably should not read this for insight or even real analysis. However, you should read it, because when future people talk about our deeply stupid era, they will talk about Hyperpolitics. And you should read it because the writing is genuinely enjoyable.

[Matthias · Rating 5 out of 5]

Een jaar geleden begon ik met het lezen van De Witte Raaf, een tweemaandelijks kunstblad dat mijn oma moet hebben meegegrist in de korte periode tussen het moment dat ik en mijn moeder haar ter hoogte van de Breughelzaal verloren waren in het MSK Gent en het moment dat ze rustig kwam aangewaggeld in de inkomhal, waar ik al een tijdje door de catalogus had zitten bladeren. Toen ik dan uiteindelijk nummer 224 van De Witte Raaf volledig had gelezen ben ik online door het archief gaan bladeren en stuitte ik in DWR222 (met het thema ‘Politiek bewustzijn’) op een artikel met de naam Hyperpolitiek en andere symptomen van Anton Jäger. Op dat moment begreep ik het artikel niet zo diepgaand omdat ik niet aandachtig, noch intelligent genoeg was geweest tijdens het lezen, ik had geen flauw idee wat Jäger nu eigenlijk bedoelde met al zijn massapolitiek, postpolitiek en antipolitiek, maar het idee van hyperpolitiek, toch wel het hoofdonderwerp, het idee dat alles politiek is, maar niets verandert, dat sprak me wel aan.

En dus herbezocht ik het artikel een tijdje geleden nog eens in het kader van een opdracht over politieke poëzie en begreep ik het veel beter. Ondertussen had ik door andere bijdragen van Jäger in De Witte Raaf (met name het artikel Het onwaarschijnlijkste land ter wereld) een appreciatie opgebouwd voor de historicus, ik was zijn columns beginnen lezen in De Morgen en wou al geruime tijd een boek van hem lezen, maar had nooit de kans gehad. Ongeveer een maand geleden kwam daar verandering in, toen ik tijdens een schooluitstap naar Gent naar het Paard Van Troje ging - want dat doe ik nu eenmaal altijd als ik in Gent ben - en op dit boek stuitte. Normaal gezien ben ik altijd heel kieskeurig tijdens mijn boekhandelbezoeken, ik kom nooit binnen met een uitgetekend idee van wat ik zal kopen, ik laat me verrassen en maak dan een weloverwogen keuze uit een shortlist van een paar boeken die me interesseren. Bij het aanschouwen van dit boek twijfelde ik echter niet echt en kocht ik het meteen. Het heeft hier dan een maand in mijn bureau gelegen voor ik twee dagen geleden besloot om het te beginnen lezen.

Het interessante is eigenlijk dat dit boek begint met een langere versie van het essay dat me dus een jaar geleden in De Witte Raaf introduceerde tot dr. Jäger en zijn concept van de hyperpolitiek. Door de uitbreiding is het essay in feite veel beter geworden, met een handig assenstelsel met de twee criteria van institutionalisering en politisering gaat Jäger dieper in op wat massa-, post-en antipolitiek nu eigenlijk zijn, iets wat ik zeker miste in de kortere versie en daarnaast worden er een paar verbindingen gemaakt tussen hyperpolitiek en media die ik zeer kon smaken. Het is een verbinding die ik ook al maakte in een tekst over politieke poëzie die ik een tijdje geleden schreef, in een eerdere versie van die tekst was de connectie over mediatheorie zelfs heel uitgebreid. Het was zeer fijn om te zien dat ook Jäger, hoewel slechts met kleine zinnetjes, die connectie maakte. De korte cycli zoals men die ziet in de hyperpolitiek zijn eigen aan sociale media, de diepgang gaat, net als bij televisie, zoals Neil Postman al opmerkte in Amusing Ourselves to Death verloren en enige vorm van institutionalisering is ofwel afwezig op sociale media ofwel gewoon niet duurzaam. De algoritmes die ons en masse in politieke bubbeltjes plaatsen spelen natuurlijk ook mee met de toenemende politisering die volgens Jäger zo kenmerkend is voor de hyperpolitieke periode waar we ons in bevinden. Sociale media zijn echter niet gemaakt voor politiek, politieke discussie, genuanceerde debatten en al zeker niet voor pogingen tot politieke verandering.

Laten we nu toch iets dieper ingaan op het mediatheoretische aspect van dit boek. Ergens in het tweede hoofdstuk, Putnam van links gaat Jäger dieper in op institutionalisering en hoe die een rol speelde bij de verkiezing van Hitler. Doordat iedereen deel uitmaakte van resems sterk georganiseerde organisaties konden ideologieën als het nazisme zich veel makkelijker verspreiden. Een parallel met de verkiezing van Trump wordt, zeer voorzichtig en genuanceerd, aangehaald door te wijzen op het feit dat er nog veel rechtse gemeenschappen zijn op het Amerikaanse platteland waar die hechte banden nog bestaan en iedereen op dezelfde persoon - in dit geval Trump - stemt. Dit soort bubbelsamenlevingen deden me denken aan de wondere wereld van het internet, waar algoritmen ervoor zorgen dat dezelfde politieke ideologie consistent blijft opduiken in je aanbevelingen, met een zekere versterking die gaandeweg optreedt. Door gelijkaardige thuispagina’s zijn mensen in zekere zin verbonden en maken ze toch op een bepaalde manier deel uit van een gelijke gemeenschap, hoewel mobilisatie en duurzame actie daar veel moeilijker van de grond komen. De verbondenheid op basis van thuispagina’s ziet men vooral op Instagram, YouTube en in mindere mate Twitter. Op Facebook is de gemeenschap al duidelijker door het idee van groepen, maar dé plek waar er volgens mij het grootste potentieel is voor politieke verbondenheid en institutionalisering is volgens mij Reddit,het onlineplatform dat ik te pas en te onpas de vuilbak van het internet noem.

Een interessante case study van de vorming van gemeenschappen op sociale media met een sterke ideologische homogeniteit zoals men die zag in de tijden van massapolitiek vindt men in de vorm van de verschillende Belgische subreddits: r/belgium, r/belgium2, r/belgium4 en r/belgium6. R/belgium is de algemene subreddit van België, waar vooral in het Engels wordt geconverseerd en duidelijke ideologie geweerd wordt door middel van strenge moderators. Het verhaal gaat dat de linkse r/belgium-moderators alle enigszins rechtse stemmen verbanden en dat daaruit dan het relatief rechtse r/belgium2 uit ontstaan is. Alle extreemrechtse stemmen die dan op r/belgium2 verbannen werden gingen dan naar r/belgium4. R/belgium6 is eigenlijk redelijk inactief en heeft niet echt een duidelijke overkoepelende ideologie. Het zijn bij uitstek hyperpolitieke subreddits. Veel zaken zijn er politiek, iedereen heeft wel een politieke mening, maar het leidt nooit tot duurzame verandering.

En dat komt gewoon door het medium. Op sociale media moet je sowieso al niet gaan zoeken naar politieke verandering, niet in het minst omdat deze vooral een vorm van escapisme zijn en dienen om politieke frustratie te uiten zonder er iets te doen aan de oorzaken van die frustratie, om met gelijkgezinden te kunnen klagen en zo een beetje de weltschmerz te stillen. Niet voor niets vergeleek Mia Cole sociale media op het einde van haar video the ethics of CONTENT met sedatives of pijnstillers. Mensen op platformen gefocust op short-form content zijn daar niet om na te denken over een nieuwe wereld, maar om te klagen over de bestaande wereld. Als er al wat mobilisatie is, dan is die ten eerste zeer zeldzaam en ten tweede vaak zelfs niet serieus bedoeld - denk aan die keer dat redditgebruikers Wall Street op zijn kop zetten door allerlei aandelen van Game Stop te kopen. Het is echter wel gewoon zo dat ons toekomstige politieke discours zich waarschijnlijk grotendeels zal afspelen op de veel meer laagdrempelige sociale media, in die zin lijkt het erop dat de hyperpolitiek er nog niet meteen op zit, tenzij men zou opperen dat deze juist wel verdwijnt omdat er, mede door de gemeenschapsvorming op sociale media, wel een zekere herinstitutionalisering aan zou kunnen komen/aan de gang kan zijn, zoals Jäger ook schreef, maar dan met een focus op rechts. Het is echter wel zo dat die herinstitutionalisering zéker niet de klassieke organisatievormen van de massapolitieke tijden volgt.

Overigens haalt Jäger nog enkele goede zaken aan: hoe links duidelijk achterholt of hoe de individualisering collectieve verandering hindert en plaatst hij alles altijd mooi in historisch perspectief. Er zijn veel problemen met de hyperpolitiek, maar het grootste probleem is dat het ons ervan weerhoudt dingen te veranderen. Sinds de antipolitiek hebben velen die snakken naar verandering die hoop in de handen van de populisten gelegd, zoals Jäger schrijft in zijn hoofdstuk over het antipolitieke decennium tussen 2008 en 2016 à 2020, het rechts-populisme (hier in België vertegenwoordigd door Vlaams Belang) is daar duidelijk succesvoller dan het links-populisme (vertegenwoordigd door de PVDA), nogmaals: links holt achterop - en schuift dan maar op naar rechts, zoals Vooruit, waardoor extreemlinks zichzelf met zijn onwerkbare ideeën in de markt zet als het enige échte links, er is ook nog Groen, maar… Groen will be Groen, Groeners gonna Groen, Groen zou Groen niet zijn als het niet altijd zo Groen was, I guess.

In feite zijn alle hoofdstukken zeer goed, maar de kers op de taart is ongetwijfeld het laatste hoofdstuk: Archimedische punten. Wanneer men kritiek geeft op bepaalde zaken, vergeet men vaak om deftige oplossingen te geven, Jäger deed dat niet. Zijn kritiek: het gebrek aan institutionalisering (in de vorm van vakbonden en dergelijke) zorgt ervoor dat de politisering niet omgezet wordt in daadwerkelijke verandering. Zijn oplossing: herinstitutionalisering via zogenaamde gemeenschappelijke, archimedische punten in de vorm van ouderraden, crèches, de werkplek en natuurlijk de eigen buurt (over lokale initiatieven als potentieel voor duurzame verandering had ook de zeer intelligente video-essayist Dr. Fatima het in haar video A Practical Guide to Systemic Change). Dat soort zaken zijn belangrijk. Er zijn veel (linkse) stemmen die heel goed zijn in zeggen dat er nood is aan verandering, al een pak minder stemmen onderzoeken waarom die verandering er niet komt (of houden het vaag, het is de schuld van het kapitalisme) en nog minder stemmen zoeken dan naar een manier om toch tot verandering te komen, tot slot is er dan een kleine minderheid die dit met zelfbewuste nuance doet. Jäger trapt niet in deze traditionele vallen, dat is fijn. Lees dit boek.

[Kaleigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love that a book (not written by Ezra Klein) about political/economic theory is this trendy, I love its bright yellow cover, and I love how quick a read it is. I do not love that the English version has a name change away from the very cool and still understandable Hyperpolitik to the markedly less-cool Hyperpolitics but not everything can be perfect I guess.

I wasn’t expecting this book to be my much yearned for criticism and update of one of the most annoying books of all time, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. The line “Bowling Alone was meant to be the kind of book that a progressive presidential candidate might carry on the campaign trail” hits especially hard if you’ve seen the documentary about Putnam in which he’s moved to tears over his admiration of JFK. Jäger investigates a similar subject here: how political parties and groups have weakened over time, but he does it without the sentimentality and maybe with enough bite that Obama won’t put it on his summer reading list (but not enough that AOC wouldn’t be caught carrying it around on her campaign trail).

Hyperpolitik observes how political parties have lost their power partially because no one is playing the long game anymore. Causes and activism are literally ephemeral, protests last for a day and we expect results almost as instantaneously. There are not really sustained movements, regular meetings with long term strategies and shared values, all of that bureaucratic stuff we have no patience for we’ve done away with which allows us the freedom to come and go as we please but it’s at the detriment of dedication and consistency. We don’t like to show up unless we’re going to see results, and if we don’t see results, there’s always some other cause to pivot to. We are disparate individuals who want systemic change without having to pledge allegiance to any system.

The book is well-researched equal parts history and sociology, but is still colloquial and easy to understand. It’s satisfying to see recent political history contextualized so succinctly. It’s a short read but every sentence earns its place.

Thank you to Verso and Netgalley for allowing me to read this early, I ended up buying a paperback anyway.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m on the fence with this one. Jäger offers some interesting discussions about the current political mess the world is in, but doesn’t seem to add much new insights. I got excited about this book mainly through the title and subtitle, as they led me to believe the book would focus on how everything in today’s world can be political: which brands you wear, what food you (don’t) eat, what music you listen to, which emojis you use. And while that is in there to some extent, I finished the book without having a true idea of what ‘hyperpolitics’ exactly are. The majority of the book is, in fact, NOT about hyperpolitics, but about the forms of politics that came before. Interesting, but not necessarily what I wanted to take away from it.

Also, file Jäger under the category of academics that think using difficult and pretentious language equals good writing, because my god his writing is insufferable sometimes:
“Two decades of political turmoil later, these testimonies feel at once familiar and strange, like one of Magritte’s domestic interiors” (p.14). WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? Since when is Magritte known for domestic interiors?
“…but in the end, there is no night in which all cows are black” (p.47). Sure dude throw in some Hegel (apparently, I had to look the saying up) without any reference or explanation as if everyone reading this book will know what you’re talking about.
”CUM GRANO SALIS” (p.62) INSTEAD OF ‘WITH A GRAIN OF SALT’ ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???

[Strega Di Gatti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Policy wonks, resist the temptation to be dismissive because so much of this book seems obvious. Sometimes, people just need to see a simple graphic that points to politicization increasing while institutionalization declines. Chef's kiss! 

Jäger makes his point and then some in this short book (monograph, really). Globally, people are identifying more strongly with political issues and opinions than ever before, but citizen views have less and less effect on the policies governments implement. Jäger characterizes modern protest and activism as expressions of resistance that fade away when the social media post is refreshed off the timeline.

One star deducted only because he doesn't engage with issues of grassroots hyper-politicization rising within entities already in power, leading to rapid institutionalization. See the Trump administration's EDI/DEI rollbacks, the harm DOGE caused, etc. Jäger also doesn't address (or, more likely, delicately ignores) long-term projects like BDS. 

[Sophie Kemp · Rating 2 out of 5]

ok i guess

[Florian Lorenzen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extreme Politisierung ohne politische Folgen?

Laut dem belgischen Historiker Anton Jäger sind wir in das Zeitalter der Hyperpolitik eingetreten. Die postpolitischen 2010er Jahre, die von technokratischer Politik geprägt waren, sind vorbei. Nun erscheinen westliche Gesellschaft so politisiert wie lange nicht, doch hieraus erfolgen keine politischen oder gesellschaftlichen Änderungen. Dieser Umstand wird von Jäger mit dem verringerten Institutionalisierungsgrad erklärt, welcher sich durch die hohen Austrittszahlen in Gewerkschaften, Kirchen und sonstigen Vereinen in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten immer weiter zugespitzt habe. Da politischer Aktivismus infolgedessen fluidere Formen annimmt und mehr von tagespolitischen Aufregern, denn von langfristig abgelegten Zielen angetrieben wird, erscheint Protest nach dieser Leseart als weniger schlagkräftig. So jedenfalls die zentrale These von Jägers 120-Seiten-Schmalen Essays „Hyperpolitik“.

Ich bin mir allerdings nicht so sicher, ob Jäger hiermit Recht behält. Keine Frage, durch den Bedeutungsverlust von Gewerkschaften und ähnlichen Organisationen haben Politik und Wirtschaft einflussreiche Gegenspieler verloren. Jedoch würde ich den kulturellen Einfluss von sozialen Bewegungen und Hashtag-Aktivismus nicht unterschätzen. Es ist jenen Bewegungen nachweislich gelungen, teilweise randständige Weltanschauungen in die Politik einzubringen und Änderungen in ihrem Sinne herbeizuführen. Wenn selbst die CDU eine Frauenquote einführt und DAX-Konzerne „gendergerechte“ Sprache praktizieren, so spricht doch einiges dafür, dass es nicht zwingend einen institutionalisierten Rahmen braucht, um Änderungen herbeizuführen. Akteure aus Politik und Wirtschaft sind erpicht darauf, nicht als kulturell rückständig wahrgenommen zu werden – und genau diese Ideale werden durch soziale Bewegungen und Aktivismus maßgeblich beeinflusst. Insofern halte ich Jägers starken Fokus auf den Institutionalisierungsgrad für zu kurzsichtig.

Trotz der von mir vorgebrachten Gegenargumente habe ich „Hyperpolitik“ gerne gelesen. Gelungen fand ich außerdem die literarischen Bezüge zu Houellebecq, Ernaux und anderen!

Review bei Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/C0BeADrNcMO/

[Celine Nguyen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The broad argument here is that the late 2010s and 2020s so far have been characterized by intensified political discourse at a superficial level, without meaningful political change exerted at a movement/institutional level. Jäger calls this hyperpolitics, and he compares, for example, the extremely low membership of the British Labour and Tory parties today vs a few decades ago; he also compares the more ephemeral left-leaning political movements today (Occupy, BLM in the US) to the more substantiative left-wing parties of the 20th century, where being part of a party also meant having a coherent social and community life—there are some nice passages about how left/communist parties ran all these youth groups and social events and so on.

I was intrigued by Jäger’s thesis and basically compelled by his arguments about how hyperpolitics happened! I also liked the way he uses Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone to talk about how politics is now divorced from consistent community events, and how he uses Wolfgang Tillmans’s photography and Annie Ernaux’s literature to compare today’s hyperpolitics to the more gently apolitical afterglow of the 1990s and the supposed “end of history.” But this is less a book than a collection of essays Jäger has previously published, all around this theme. The essays are good but don’t flow together nicely, and the first one (which sort of feels like the book’s intro) is full of overwhelmingly dense prose. (I’m admittedly out of practice with very Theory-laden nonfiction rn.)

[alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Both charming and insightful, but spoiled by being undercooked.

This garnered many detractors and supporters in its short life, and after reading it, I get why. There's a good heuristic here. The idea of hyperpolitics scratches at the reality of the 2020s. The idea in short is: citizens in liberal democracies, after a short era of post-political prosperity, quickly organize in massive, leaderless spurts of intensity, then just as quickly dissolve without achieving their goals; meanwhile the ship of state moves on, rudderless.

I think the author is on the money that the present is a moment of both hyperactivity and indeterminacy, brought on by an electorate that is both highly agitated and housebroken. This thesis intuitively feels right, but there aren't enough examples and data to back it up, and the whole project ends up feeling like a "just so" story. It feels as if the framework of "hyperpolitics" was so explosive the author treated it as a gold rush and slapped out the quickest analysis possible to stake out a claim. Hopefully, that claim will be invested in as time goes on.

Right now this book feels like a post-script to Jean Baudrillard and Jacques Derrida, and I mean that as high praise. There's something alive here, but it will need tending to grow into maturity.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are caught in an era of political whiplash. Every day, new battle lines are drawn and fought in the digital swamp of ever-expanding culture wars. Waves of protests and political movements surge and recede, only to leave the institutions they challenged intact and unchanged. We are urgently engaged in the politics of our lives yet we are increasingly isolated from the politicians and policies that shape them. As our traditional reservoirs of community fracture and split—how do we navigate the new currents spilling from these cracks?

Anton Jäger examines these contradictions through the lens of “hyperpolitics.” At its core, hyperpolitics is the product of market logic and public outrage. For their wealth accumulation to proceed uninterrupted, ruling classes poured decades into insulating these elite, private interests from pesky obstacles like mass democracy and state regulation. Any institutions capable of resistance (unions, political parties, churches, etc.) were hollowed-out and demobilized. These organized communities that gave everyday citizens an understanding of their societies, even an ability to change them, have become footnotes to the manifesto of capitalism.

Jäger argues that the severing of populations from these classic forms of association was a double-edged sword. With civilian life in decay, people then began to reject the authority of state institutions that they recognized as no longer serving public interests. Evidenced by the success of Brexit and the electoral victories of Donald Trump, the trust once afforded to political establishments has been spent. In the process of dissolving communal institutions, those same elites dissolved the very ties that bound societies together.

These are the social conditions that allow for hyperpolitics. The isolated and online individual can abandon social relations with ease and drift from one institution to the next. Civic engagement is fleeting. Movements to confront injustice flare up and, without a structure to involve their participants, fizzle out just as fast. Jäger does not argue that politicization occurs in a void of consequence, rather that the consequences depend on what community remains available to organize and mobilize those passions. The questions posed in this concise book are valuable to anyone interested in what it will take to challenge the status quo of power. Will traditional institutions like political parties and unions be restored to offer real access to systemic change? Will the atomized experience of hyperpolitics give rise to new institutional forms? The community of people denied access to a life of dignity grows every day.

[Frau Becker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ich bin ein bisschen enttäuscht, nachdem in letzter Zeit in jedem zweiten politischen Feuilleton auf den Begriff Bezug genommen wird, hatte ich mir etwas mehr versprochen. Vielleicht gäbe es einen Stern mehr, wenn das Buch "Antipolitik" hieße, denn dieses Phänomen wird wesentlich klarer umrissen, Jägers Gedanken dazu leuchten mir ein. Der Begriff "Hyperpolitik" scheint mir demgegenüber etwas schwammig, die Ausführungen dazu nicht recht fertig, müsste man sich doch wesentlich tiefer in den neuen Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit, allen voran den Siegeszug von Social Media, einarbeiten, um dem Phänomen wirklich gerecht zu werden. Jäger kritisiert den immer weiter abnehmenden Institutionalisierungsgrad politischer Partizipation, die Verlagerung v.a. in Internetforen sowie die Abkehr von Parteien, Gewerkschaften und Vereinen, doch war es nicht gerade die Stärke etwa von Fridays for Future, dass man jenseits parteipolitischer Bindungen und sonstiger Interessen den Klimaschutz als Thema setzte? Auch die Identitätspolitik, deren Debatten sich v.a. in den sozialen Medien abspielen, hätte einen Seitenblick verdient. Das Phänomen bleibt interessant und hätte gerade deswegen eine gründlichere Behandlung verdient.

[Freja Schmidt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bogen har mindet mig om hvorfor jeg ikke skulle læse sociologi - at forklare semi-banale pointer på en enormt kompliceret og kringlet måde er ikke lige min kop the, selvom hans pointer er gode. Han mangler at tage læseren i hånden.

[Pascal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hyperpolitik bedeutet kurzgefasst: Unsere Gesellschaft ist so politisch wie seit 100 Jahren nicht mehr, aber gleichzeitig so desorganisiert wie nie zuvor.

Auf gerade einmal 120 Seiten behandelt das Büchlein diese für viele sicherlich sofort einleuchtende These. Spannend ist dabei vor allem: Wie kamen wir an diesen Punkt? Wie groß ist der Schaden, der durch Entfremdung entsteht? Wieso profitiert die Rechte, wenn doch angeblich gesamtgesellschaftliches Chaos herrscht?

Der moderne Kapitalismus, aber nicht zuletzt auch moderne Kommunikationsmedien haben dazu beigetragen, dass unser soziales Miteinander heute ein ganz anderes ist als noch zu Zeiten der starken Parteien und Gewerkschaften. Das Erschreckende: Wir erkennen uns beim Lesen selbst und können die genannte Kritik an uns selbst nachvollziehen. Das Buch kratzt dabei nur an der Oberfläche dieser tiefen Aushöhlung.

Soziales Engagement neben stressigen Vollzeitjobs für beide Eheparteien werden zunehmend zur Ausnahme. Sogar Bewegungen wie Black Lives Matter oder Fridays for Future, die Millionen Menschen weltweit auf die Straße bringen, sind ein Sturm im Wasserglas, da sie quasi auf sozial-medialen Launen basieren. Keine Struktur, kein gesteuertes dauerhaftes Engagement.

Bei all den oben genannten Fragen steht die verlockendste noch im Raum: „Wie kommen wir hinaus aus dieser Zerstreuung?“ Schließlich kennt das Buch sämtliche Ursachen und Symptome. Daraus lässt sich aber noch lange kein Heilmittel ableiten.

Denn gerade weil diese gesellschaftlichen Phänomene über Jahrzehnte gewachsen sind und weil sie häufig ein Produkt unserer eigenen Gleichgültigkeit, Überforderung oder Gemütlichkeit sind, brauchen wir mehr als nur einen kollektiven Arschtritt. Dieser Entwicklung mit Büchern wie diesem Aufmerksamkeit zu schenken, ist der wichtige erste Schritt.

[Molly]

It feels unfair to rate this because I do not think I am sufficiently educated or well-read to understand all of it. It felt at times very interesting and at times too dense to parse. Certainly a good fit for someone with expertise in political and social theory.

One of the more interesting themes is the replacement of “membership groups” in the U.S. by nonprofit, professionally managed advocacy groups that have no membership structure. This shift turned political activism and involvement into something that can be watched from afar, or donated to, but not directly involved in, as that is now a professional role instead of a citizen’s duty.

This book, as someone else wrote, does a good job of showing why we are all insane now: “The mood of contemporary politics is one of incessant yet uncoordinated excitation… Rather than concrete results, what all these political objects share is the ability to reproduce frenetic activity, relayed by an increasingly digital public sphere.”

But I did not come away with any ideas on how to make it better. Perhaps that is part of the problem, there is no obvious answer, and looking to the past for advice will always lead us astray, because the political culture of the “before-times” is probably unrecoverable

[Brecht Rogissart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never knew you could say so much about twentieth and twenty-first century politics with just two variables: politicisation and institutionalisation. For those who have been following Anton for a long time, I recommend this book as a great synopsis of his latest writings, building further on his work on populism. For beginners, I recommend this book as an opening into his work on both populism and hyperpolitics. I hope to see his work proceeding into a further political, sociological, and psychological analysis of the contemporary (extreme) right.

[Mira Madsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Man kunne få det indtryk, at etværelseslejligheden er civilisationens endemål, og at den aleneboende er afslutningen på en antropologisk forfinelsesproces, der har strakt sig over årtusinder”
Den er god, læs den, gør noget.

[Sam Cotton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful antidote for the post-political era thats come crashing to an end without anything positively changing. I Think 'Hyper' is a prefix that runs the risk of being overused or ill-considered however this is a brief but good analysis of the present state of affairs - Everything is politicised and everyone seems to be engaged but nothing ever seems to happen.

Hyperpolitics does well to point to the 'overshot' of neoliberalism which in ripping up and dissolving left-wing bastions of political organisation, also hit and destroyed much of the beds of conservatism on the right. Movingly shown by the reference to the plethora of washed-out blue conservative club placards that dot buildings that haven't seen any love since the 70s. Whilst we mustn't fall prey to the nostalgia of the 70s, the lack of institutions that not only facilitate political campaigns but also politicise populations (Unions that used to have clubs or surplus resources) has been a crippling loss to leftist action. Action hasn't disappeared but has become ineffective reduced to certain outlets or simply being repressed - often individualistic, ranging from pointless social media posts to voting once every 5 years to lone wolf killings, where none of any lasting effect.

As a work of political theory focusing on the institutions and organisation, this analysis is very strong however I think 'hyper' politics begs analysis to be done beyond this. It is right to claim that social media content creation falls inevitably short of real world activism and refusal of work however what needs to be considered is the methods of control employed by digital platforms to preside over this. One great, glaring example of a hyperpolitics of everyday life is the desire to divest from social media when no such thing happens on any scale. The reality is that there are sophisticated methods designed to prevent real-world agency from happening which closes the door to escaping false activism.

Also worth considering is developing what actual political action looks like, and defining exactly what parties must be. Critics and fans alike may look at recent examples of Mamdani and Polanski as examples of the revenge of 'real' politics but it would be interesting to consider whether these also are primarily social media experiences (with Mamdani notably being a regional politician with international adoration). Based on what political parties once were, these are surely not yet enough or don't yet create institutions which workers can organise their lives and social fabrics around.

[David Tuttle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice quick read. Really nails it on the head of the impacts of individualization/atomization in everyday life and the political impacts while being realistic without being pessimistic.

[Eduardo Lima · Rating 4 out of 5]

ótimo na caracterização de hiperpolítica como momento de alta politização e baixa institucionalização e na problematização da classificação de Trump e novos autoritários como fascismo (fascismo como fenômeno histórico, Jäger argumenta, depende de classe trabalhadora prestes a tomar poder por via revolucionária. definitivamente não é nosso caso), deixa a desejar no europeísmo excessivo (só cita Bolsonaro em díptico com Trump, Junho de 2013 poderia ter ajudado muito na reflexão sobre o período antipolítico dos 2010, a palavra "China" nem aparece no livro. países asiáticos, só Rússia) e na receita nostálgica para resolver nossas crises. sim, precisamos de comunidade, mas será que a forma-partido dos séculos 19 e 20 é realmente o caminho a idealizar? ele reconhece isso, mas não sugere qualquer outra coisa. no geral, gostei bastante e foi uma boa leitura pras férias! fez um bom combo com o Nem Vertical Nem Horizontal, que estou lendo mas que precisei deixar em São Paulo porque não cabia na mochila. li esse no Kindle.

[Duarte Cabral]

O diagnóstico mais lúcido que já li sobre este Agora que teima em nunca mais terminar. Faz um enquadramento da relação do ocidente com a política ao longo dos últimos 125 anos e depois estabelece uma teoria do nosso absurdismo político, e como qualquer movimento de esquerda é vítima de si mesmo ao mesmo que tempo que não tem qualquer espaço para se semear, crescer e reproduzir de forma sustentável. É rápido e direto sem parecer alguma vez sacrificar a substância necessária para consolidar os seus argumentos. Para alguns mais entendidos e estudiosos da matéria, poderá ser um copinho de shot de "mais do mesmo" (180+- páginas não dão para tudo). Para mim, foi como se me tivessem tirado cataratas dos olhos. Leitura urgente, para ontem mesmo.

[Dorin · Rating 4 out of 5]

“[H]yperpolitics is a permanently volatile, diffuse phenomenon.”

Hyperpolitics is a critique of the contemporary Western political landscape, explaining how we transitioned from the highly organized mass movements of the twentieth century to our current era of highly volatile and inconsequential political outrage. To illustrate this, Anton Jäger divides the last century or so into four distinct political phases.

From 1914 to 1989, we lived in the mass politics age. Citizens were part of dense social networks. Trade unions, mass-membership parties, religious groups, clubs, etc. These offered a stable sense of class identity which translated political passions into structured, long-term power.

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of global capitalism, we saw an era of postpolitics, of low politicization and institutionalization. Citizens retreated into their private lives and consumerism, and technocrats managed policy. Politics became boring. Young generations were uninterested and apathetic.

This changed with the 2008 financial crash. A phase of high politicization began, which Jäger calls antipolitics. Movements like the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, the Spanish Indignados, and Italy’s Five Star Movement emerged. However, they remained highly suspicious of traditional structures and vertical leadership.

The current phase of hyperpolitics, from the late 2010s to the present day, represents an intensification of antipolitics. Everything, from the products we buy to the memes we share, has become intensely political. At the same time, the civic infrastructure (unions, parties, groups, clubs) has continued to disintegrate. We are now in a permanent atmosphere of polarization, with a lot of political outrage but with few political consequences. Unlike the slow, disciplined politics of the past, hyperpolitics is modelled by the short-term cycles of social media and financial markets, requiring low commitment, low cost of entry, and an even lower cost of exit.

“Like the notoriously short cycles of financial markets and digital media, the contemporary public sphere spasmodically convulses without ever crystallizing into durable infrastructure.”

“[P]eople are lonelier in the new century, but also more agitated; more atomized, but also more connected; angrier, yet more disoriented.”

“[H]yperpolitics addresses the longing for purpose so characteristic of the last century, left unsatisfied since the 1990s.”

“We find ourselves in a world unkind to nostalgists and futurists alike.”

“[I]deological disorientation is a hallmark of the hyperpolitical age. Debate erupts over one issue today, another tomorrow. But individuals no longer possess a heuristic capable of unifying and imposing coherence on their various viewpoints.”

One of the book’s central arguments is that today's fast-paced, online political climate favors the right over the left. Capitalists already have power through their money and networks, so they don't need to build official political groups to get what they want. Additionally, the modern right thrives on charismatic leaders who use social media to bypass traditional politics and rally isolated, atomized individuals, winning their support without needing them to actually organize or agree on a real plan. The left, on the other hand, faces a much harder task. To change the system and redistribute wealth, the left has to build strong and disciplined organizations. Because building permanent groups is so hard right now, modern left-wing movements often act like “neutron bombs”. They might bring millions of people to the streets for a short time (see the Black Lives Matter protests), but they usually fade away without actually changing the underlying power structures.

“Instant analysis is always perilous. Like a high-speed camera, histories of the present risk falling prey to the fluidity and indeterminacy of the situation they seek to capture, wedged between impressionistic detail and grand abstraction. It is all the more difficult when the present itself has become so diffuse. Much as the Marxist philosophy of history appeared obsolete in a post-historical age, the unfolding “polycrisis”—the neologism coined by Adam Tooze to capture this century’s overlapping 5emergencies—is always one step ahead in its awesome abstractions: a 20 percent cut in GDP, 30 percent youth unemployment, $5 trillion in stimulus spending, 15 million jobs lost. History and politics are clearly taking place—but can we still say with confidence what “history” or “politics” means?”

“Politics once again intrudes into private life, culture, even the economy. ‘Today, everything is political,’ Adam Tooze observed in a 2023 interview. ‘From an American perspective, the neoliberal attempt to depoliticize the economy has failed.’ ‘Almost everything about business today is political,’ the Harvard Business Review reported in 2022, and ‘choices that may have been clear-cut in purely economic terms . . . can now easily become complicated by politics.’ As an American journalist confessed on the eve of the 2020 presidential election:
I’ve always been interested in politics. For much of my life, this was a niche interest . . . The election of Donald Trump has made politics all consuming. Everything has become political; from what sports you watch, what products you buy, and even how you protect your own health. The people who once shared cat videos on the internet now share stridently political memes, and third-tier staffers have become celebrities.”

To illustrate our hyperpolitical age, Jäger uses the story of the Pamir ship, which sank in a 1957 hurricane because its cargo of unpackaged barley shifted in the storm.

“In earlier times, individuals were embedded in dense social networks and participated in a wide array of intermediate associations. Today’s societies are composed of increasingly atomized and isolated individuals. As long as history moves along smoothly and predictably, this need not necessarily be a problem. But when societies enter choppier waters, atomization amplifies their volatility—and the collective incapacity to respond to today’s political and ecological crises.”

“My generation constantly oscillates between the realization that we need to get moving, preferably very quickly, and the feeling that all is in vain. The true challenge—to change things—appears nigh impossible.” (Quote from photographer Tom Peeters)

Quite an impressive essay for such a young scholar.

[Kuu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC/ALC.

Hm. I'm not sure if I wanted this book to be longer, or just found it unnecessary. I definitely do not feel like the author succeeded at defining hyperpolitics, and I'm still unsure how the term relates to the developments described in the book. I'm also not really sure if there was much original analysis, as it mainly felt like a regurgitation of historical facts, surveys etc.. I really do not feel like I got much out of this book. It wasn't bad, it just felt a bit empty, a bit lacking in cohesion. I think maybe it would have been beneficial to write a longer, more detailed book, to really go into the concepts and themes the author attempts to introduce. This book was just way too short for that, I think - 130 pages (3 hours in audiobook format) aren't enough for a decent political analysis.

The narrator did fine, and I command him for the bunch of foreign names he had to pronounce in this one.

[Avery]

This little book paints a bleak picture of our political situation, and so I found myself wanting to counter it. But recent counterpoints, if we can call them that, cut both ways: I'm thinking both of Zohran Mamdani's watershed victory as well as Trump's thunderous second term. Sure, we don't have mass institutions like we did in the middle half of the twentieth century, but the DSA is now the largest organization in the history of the US left, and I feel that has to count for something. On the other hand, the "frantic activity" of Jäger's hyperpolitics continue apace in the White House, but the institutional consequences seem more far-reaching than the first term, on which much of this analysis is based. There are other things that bother me about the line of thinking in this book, but I need to digest it a bit more.

[Karl Eidsvik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kanskje det feteste omslaget på ei bok? Interessant tese, og det gir jo (veldig) mening, men ka e egt forskjellen på anti- og hyperpolitikk? E det bare for at det høres enda fetere ut, eller e det bare enda mer æ fikk ikke helt det med mæ æ. Kunne gjerne vært diskutert litt mer :0 mye interessant her og der da.

[Sarah Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

good but missing components? I have a lot I could say not on Jeff Bezos’s goodreads

[Vincentvanbeest · Rating 3 out of 5]

Een poging om de huidige tijd te duiden die een beetje blijft hangen in het wel érg interessante woordgebruik. Daarom de neiging om het, zoals de auteur zou schrijven, cum grano salis te nemen.

[Benjamin De Almeida · Rating 5 out of 5]

We really all thought we were doing something in 2020