Elegies to Failed Revolutions: The Antipolitics of Hiking

“Politics is but a narrow field, and that still narrower highway yonder leads to it.” - Henry David Thoreau

I.

The 1969 Czechoslovak comedy ‘Ecce Homo Homolka’ begins with a funny but terrifying scene. A family is taking their Sunday off to enjoy a day in the forest. Nearby a young couple is awkwardly beginning to make love and are in a state of half-undress when a woman’s voice pierces through the serenity of the scene calling for help somewhere in the distan…