Critique and consolation: Countering ‘activist fatigue’ in a non-therapeutic way

Abstract

Contemporary emancipatory praxis is undermined by ‘activist fatigue’ related to the uncertain efficiency of collective action. The article investigates the phenomenon from a critical theoretical perspective. The crisis of praxis is inseparable from the crisis of theory: to resolve them, critical theory's relation to suffering needs to be revised. To provide an alternative framework, the perspective of consolation is proposed as a counter to activist fatigue. Consolation does not aim at eradicating the activists’ existential suffering; instead, it provides tools to live with the uncertainties of activism. To elaborate a version of consolation capable of resolving the crisis of emancipatory praxis, four questions are analysed: what is the relationship between critique and consolation; how can the phenomenological space of consolation be described; what are the contemporary constraints surrounding consolation; how can consolation be consistent with both the demands of critique and the constraints of late modernity, while avoiding activist fatigue?