Disputes are dubious, disagreements are dirty. Fighting in public is generally frowned upon. Where conflict is acceptable in our society, it is mostly in order to feed a trigger-happy economy of attention. From trolling, to techniques of false balance and message control:

Here, even the most burning questions of our day fail to be addressed – and that great firewall, pragmatism, remains unshaken.

At the same time, conflict is consciously fomented on a day-to-day basis. Politicians from established political parties fabricate “controversial” messages and create storms of outrage in order to distract from less convenient topics. Meanwhile, in emancipatory movements, the prevailing culture of conflict tends to prioritise that which divides over commonalities. Instead of discussing shared struggles and solidarities, the focus is on who should be allowed to speak – while all along, new facts are created in the slipstream of shitstorms, democratic institutions are disassembled, and further forms of polarisation are plotted.

It’s 2024, and trouble is on the horizon. Society’s common sense, which walls off long-overdue conflicts, is troubled. Troubled, too, is the reflex to divide, which renders moments of dispute irresolvable. Troubled are the politics of affect, which resolve one conflict by starting another.

Which conflicts are long-overdue? Which are destructive? Where is energy going to waste? And what must most urgently be fought out and fought for?