Senses of Community

Abstract

Perhaps the funeral bell tolled somewhat too soon. It is true that dandies die, but perhaps it is equally true, as the genealogy of dandyism shows, that one could never be sure of their absolute demise. Maybe one day a new dandy will arise. This was the case at the end of the twentieth century, when so-called populist leaders, such as Pim Fortuyn and Jörg Haider, were dubbed political dandies or Polit-Dandies. But what is it, then, that in their work allows for conceiving them as dandies? This chapter provides a close reading of Fortuyn’s treatise on the future politician, The Orphaned Society, to show what particular traits of political dandyism this alleged form of populism contains. If Baudelaire wrote a treatise on the painter of modern life, and Lyotard a treatise on the painter of postmodern life, then Fortuyn wrote a treatise on the politician of contemporary life. And that politician could only be a political dandy.