From the Ashes

The politics of grief, in an era marked by loss, show us how we can find our humanity once more. Our era is one of significant and substantial loss, yet we barely have time to acknowledge it. The losses range from the personal grief of a single COVID death to the planetary disaster wrought by climate change, in an age of unraveling hopes and expectations, of dreams curtailed, of aspirations desiccated. This is capitalism’s death phase. It has become clear that the cost of wealth creation for a few is enormous destruction for others, for the marginalized and the vulnerable but increasingly for all of us. At the same time we are denied the means of mourning those futures that are being so brutally curtailed. At such a moment, taking the time to grieve is a political act. Sarah Jaffe shows how the act of public memorialization has become a radical statement, a vibrant response to loss and a path to imagining a better world. When we are able to grieve well the ones we have lost, the causes they fought for or the examples they bequeathed us, we are better prepared to fight for a transformed future.