profound changes broughtabout by digital technologies and information archi-
tectures and the highlymediated spectacles of public emotioninadvanced cap-
italist societies. In sociology, to give one example, these developments have re-
vealedthe shortcomingsoftraditional studies on social movements thatrely on
the rational choice paradigm to explain political convictions and affiliations and
inspired morepopularscientific inquiries about contemporary phenomena such
as the making of emotional capitalism.²²
The growingawarenessofthe role of emotions in politics has partlytodo
with the explanatory vacuum left by the disappearance of political ideologies
in the postcommunist world and, closely related, the failureofeducated elites
in North America,Europe, and elsewheretoimagine valid alternativestoglobal
capitalism and the neoliberal world order.There are manyreasonsto insist on
the importance of emotional faculties tomodern democracies, as shownby
George E. Marcus’sconcept of the sentimental citizen,Andrew Burstein’snotion
of sentimental democracy,and MarthaNussbaum’sargument for the power of
loveinthe fight for justice.²³These scholars all shareastrong desire to movebe-
yond the earlier juxtaposition of reason and emotion andto counter the assump-
tion thatemotion in politics is inevitably adestructive force. Compelling argu-
ments have been made for studying the politics of fear and compassion and
recognizingthe unifying effect of passions and enthusiasms. However,there is
no evidence to conclude that empathyisalways beneficial for social cohesion
and that emotion, or affect,touse the termpreferred by affect theorists, is some-
how“always alreadysutured intoaprogressive or liberatory politics.”²⁴
As the history of modernmass movements has shown, nothing could be fur-
ther from the truth. The political emotions thatwereclaimed as part of the pro-
letarian dream can be described as anticipatory as well asrestorative, generative
as well as prescriptive,and aspirational as well as compensatory.However,they
cannot be forced into the familiar binaries of progressive versus reactionary and
subversive versus affirmative that have become an almostmeaningless critical
The reference isto Eva Illouz,Cold Intimacies:The Making of Emotional Capitalism(London:
Polity,2007).
See AndrewBurstein,Sentimental Democracy:The Evolution of America’sSelf Image(New
York: Hill&Wang,1999); George E. Marcus,TheSentimental Citizen: Emotion in Democratic Pol-
itics(University Park,PA:Pennsylvania StateUniversity Press,2002);and MarthaNussbaum,Po-
litical Emotions:Why LoveMattersfor Justice(Cambridge,MA: TheBelknapPress of HarvardUni-
versity Press,2015).
Gregory J. Seigworth and Melissa Gregg,“An Inventory of Shimmers,”inTheAffectTheory
Reader,ed. Melissa Greggand Gregory J. Seigworth (Durham,NC: DukeUniv ersity Press,
2010), 10.Infact,PaulBloom makesapolemicalargumentagainst empathyinAgainst Empathy:
TheCasefor Rational Compassion(NewYork: Ecco,2016).
Introduction 25