The World is a Wasteland: Living in an Age of Diminishing Expectations

Authors

Thiago Canettieri, Federal University of Minas GeraisFollow

ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3662-6104

Keywords

crisis, capital's collapse, diminishing expectations

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Research Article

Abstract

Building on Hu Bo´s film “An elephant sitting still”, this paper examines a specific condition in contemporary society, in which expectations about the future are declining. This situation is interpreted as a consequence of the progressive collapse of modernisation. The diminishing expectations, I claim, are related to capital´s internal crisis, which erodes the very fabric of social mediation; in its place, arise all kinds of atavistic forms of violent desocialisation. I intend to recognize and examine a new condition of historicity in which time is no longer productive. Society experiences history as a dead time of dilated presentism. With this article, I hope to contribute to building a critical interpretation of the current world, highlighting the problems that a radical philosophy must tackle to overcome the present state of things.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Canettieri, Thiago (2025) "The World is a Wasteland: Living in an Age of Diminishing Expectations," Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis: Vol. 4: Iss. 1, Article 1.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55533/2765-8414.1126
Available at: https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/emancipations/vol4/iss1/1