On Enthusiasm in Politics: 12 Hypotheses

Abstract

The author suggests twelve hypothesis to revive enthusiasm as a political category and, finally, to restate the possibility of political action. The enthusiasm of the masses was in this perspective the essential political element of ''The Glorious Thirties'' following the Second War World, characterized by this tension to realize a greater social justice. It would have been also at the base of the ''Long Sixty- eight'' and of the processes of decolonization. Enthusiasm is thus thought in opposition both to the monopolistic pretension of political innovation forwarded by communist parties in the past and to the exclusive competence on political-economical decisions claimed today by democratic élite. Rethinking the enthusiasm that animated these historic sequences of the Twentieth century should offer the possibility to respond to «the sad passions» that dominate the era of neoliberal administration of global democracy.