Our stories shape our worlds. The power of narratives in the attention economy can be realigned for politically progressive agendas. This book analyses the narrative mechanisms that script the way we act through the way they represent other people's actions, real or fictional. Digging under the common worries about misinformation and fake news, it uncovers the attention economy which organizes our political perceptions around affective attractors, much more potent than the truth value of any given statement. Our conceptions and practices of politics need to be anchored into a deeper understanding of the affective dynamics that infrastructures our perceptions of the world. Through Spinoza and Denis Diderot, Paul Ricoeur and Francesca Poletta, Wu Ming and Sun Ra, literary examples and philosophical concepts are seamlessly weaved into each other to provide intuitive illustrations within a strong analytical framework.
Through its five chapters, the book claims that the Left has underestimated the power of myth ("mythocracy"), abandoning it to the most reactionary political movements. Populism and conspiracy theories have occupied a ground that needs to be reconquered. The time has come to theorize and practice an empowering circulation of myths.
