IN 1980, THEN–Prime Minister of the UK Margaret Thatcher coined the phrase ‘There Is No Alternative’ (TINA). Twelve years later, in 1992, Francis Fukuyama published The End of History and the Last Man, where ‘end’ should be understood as ‘final destination’. For both, this utopian state was capitalist liberal democracy, which had proved itself superior to all other forms of collective organisation. But such a belief flies in the face of what history does. It never ends. It’s always beginning, always creating alternatives. If these options are not openly and civilly debated, bitter divisions rise up like smoke through floorboards, signalling the flames of latent violence beneath.

‘A time of fragmentation’ is a phrase that describes a period in which profoundly different world views jostle for dominance, and the destructive capacities of human beings threaten to do their worst. It isn’t just that public opinion is polarised. There’s a centrifugal quality to everyday life that makes it feel as if it’s being ripped apart. Politics tries to make sense. But it keeps falling into a Dante-like circle of paradox and confusion where neither old ways nor new, tradition nor reform, conviction nor doubt offer an escape from a fear, anger and hate that has no abatement because it seems rooted in human nature itself.