A ghost (another one?) is haunting Europe. A few weeks ago, the US Vice President, JD Vance, wanted to embarrass European leaders during the Munich conference, accusing the old continent of being sclerosed by bureaucracy. Shortly after, he, along with his superior, Donald Trump, humiliated Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, in a public appearance at the White House to discuss the peace plan for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. All this while the elections to the German Bundestag confirmed the rise of AfD (Alternative for Germany), the German far-right party, as the second political force in the country and the first in the territories of the former GDR.
The ground is shaking again under the feet of Europeans, and we don't really know where to look. Heinz Bude (Wuppertal, 1954), has been analyzing our response to situations like this for some time. Considered one of the most important sociologists in Europe, he is the author of 'The Society of Fear' (Herder, 2017), a fundamental treatise to understand the paralysis and forward escapes of the contemporary world. His recent visit to the VIII Forum of Culture, held in Valladolid and Madrid where he debated the presence of fear in our lives with thinkers Robert Peckham and McKenzie Wark, was a unique opportunity to try to find out what is happening to us.