Disconsolate Dreamers: On Pessimism and Utopia

Through quiet acts of naysaying to the world, of nihilistic or self-destructive events, or in wider-ranging renegotiations of what's acceptable and possible at the limits of reason, pessimism revives the possibility for radical change.

It calls for a disentanglement from the world and, in so doing, offers a glimpse at the utopian impossible.

Against the pernicious machinations of modern-day capitalism and a perverse optimism that sustains it, 'Disconsolate Dreamers' explores the extent to which pessimism is compatible with a radical utopian goal - namely, a collective escape from the misery of modern existence.

It shows that, in a thoroughly hopeless world devoid of rational alternatives, it is time for the Left to consider the pessimist a helpful guide out of the somnolence of capitalist realism, revealing how pessimism necessitates a radical revision of utopian alterity.