If you hadn’t noticed, a new spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of social consensus and all-inclusive democracy. This latest chapter of Miessen’s ongoing research debates how such things can be detrimental and depressing to the cultural sphere, when the majority overpowered the proactive singular and the idea of inclusion – perceived as participation – all too often stands for plain assimilation. While the arguments seems obvious perhaps – the battered social-democratic idealism and model of citizenship being now an easy target –  the point of view adopted by Miessen strives to fight the democratic perspective bottleneck of looking at things bottom-up (the social mobility, the chances of improvement) or top-down (the welfare, the democratic invitation to the citizens to have their say). Only looking at the matter from the side, it seems, can trigger the outsider to contribute to change.