POLARISED TIMES (TEMPI POLARIZZATI)

The public sphere seems to have split in two: positions are becoming increasingly rigid, increasingly heated, and space for complexity increasingly restricted. Radicalism and extremism arise from real discontent and insecurity, but they are also emotional and irrational responses at a time when negotiation between distant values seems to have broken down. Polarisation is more like an instinctive mechanism that acts on emotions, identities and relationships, transforming opposition – necessary in any democratic context – into absolute conflict.

This is discussed by artist and director Julian Hetzel, director of the show Three Times Left is Right and Giorgia Seghuretti, political scientist and lecture in Political Philosophy at the Biccoca University of Milan.