The Rise of Lifestyle Activism

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This book explores changes in the values and ideas of a large part of the political Left in recent decades. The author identifies that a questioning of the merits of economic growth; an ideal of environmental sustainability overriding the old radical visions of material abundance; a critique of instrumental reason; a suspiciousness towards universalist claims; and an attachment to subjective and pluralistic identities, have been dominant in the narratives of the Leftist milieu and of social movements.&nbsp;<div><br></div>Yet the author suggests that such changes, known as ‘lifestyle activism’, could be understood in a different way, one characterised by suspiciousness towards the belief that human action guided by reason can lead society towards a future that will be better and more affluent. Using a range of case studies from the 1960's to the present day anti-austerity movement,&nbsp;Sotirakopoulos &nbsp;argues that the New Left and its ideological heirs could be understood not so much as a continuation, but as an inversion from the Old Left and, most importantly, from humanistic visions of modernity.&nbsp;<div><br></div><div>The book will therefore be ideal reading for students and researchers of political sociology, radical politics, modern political ideologies, contentious politics and political theory and to &nbsp;scholars of new social movements and the New Left.</div><p></p>