What's left of subjectivity
sleep, depression and other "passive resistances" to capitalist subjectivation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20336/rbs.979Keywords:
Capitalism, Subjectivity, Sleep, Depression, dopingAbstract
As authors of different theoretical persuasions have argued, the systemic logic of contemporary capitalism is dependent upon particular forms of “subjectivity” or “individuality”. From the media industry of “motivational” content to the use of drugs as instruments for enhancing one’s competences, there is a variety of social “dispositifs of subjectivation” (Foucault) through which individuals attempt to correspond to the models of individuality which are required and valued by capitalism nowadays. On the one hand, a Foucaldian language of “subjectivation” and the “production” of subjectivities is right in underscoring the degree to which the ways of acting, thinking and feeling of individual subjectivities are shaped by those dispositifs. On the other hand, an analysis of phenomena such as sleep (as interpreted by Jonathan Crary), the resort to doping (as interpreted by Alain Ehrenberg) and depression (as interpreted by Mark Fisher) show that those dispositifs of subjectivation encounter organic-psychic “protests” and “passive resistances” in the very subjectivity they attempt to shape. Mapping such conflictual dynamics between disposifits and resistances, the article covers four argumentative axes, each one privileging a particular authorial contribution: Alain Ehrenberg’s reflections on the resort to consciousness altering drugs as instruments for enhancement of one’s performance in the “doping society”; Jonathan Crary’s cogitations on sleep as an obstacle to the complete colonization of subjectivity by the capitalist imaginary of endless activity; the systemic and political interpretation of depression as a structural effect of “capitalist realism” formulated by the cultural critic Mark Fisher; and, finally, the analysis of psychopathology as “protest” undertaken by the feminist philosopher Susan Bordo, which is central for apprehending the ambiguity that is inherent to the “passive resistances” discussed in the paper.As authors of different theoretical persuasions have argued, the systemic logic of contemporary capitalism is dependent upon particular forms of “subjectivity” or “individuality”. From the media industry of “motivational” content to the use of drugs as instruments for enhancing one’s competences, there is a variety of social “dispositifs of subjectivation” (Foucault) through which individuals attempt to correspond to the models of individuality which are required and valued by capitalism nowadays. On the one hand, a Foucaldian language of “subjectivation” and the “production” of subjectivities is right in underscoring the degree to which the ways of acting, thinking and feeling of individual subjectivities are shaped by those dispositifs. On the other hand, an analysis of phenomena such as sleep (as interpreted by Jonathan Crary), the resort to doping (as interpreted by Alain Ehrenberg) and depression (as interpreted by Mark Fisher) show that those dispositifs of subjectivation encounter organic-psychic “protests” and “passive resistances” in the very subjectivity they attempt to shape. Mapping such conflictual dynamics between disposifits and resistances, the article covers four argumentative axes, each one privileging a particular authorial contribution: Alain Ehrenberg’s reflections on the resort to consciousness altering drugs as instruments for enhancement of one’s performance in the “doping society”; Jonathan Crary’s cogitations on sleep as an obstacle to the complete colonization of subjectivity by the capitalist imaginary of endless activity; the systemic and political interpretation of depression as a structural effect of “capitalist realism” formulated by the cultural critic Mark Fisher; and, finally, the analysis of psychopathology as “protest” undertaken by the feminist philosopher Susan Bordo, which is central for apprehending the ambiguity that is inherent to the “passive resistances” discussed in the paper.
References
Bauman, Zygmunt. (1998). O mal-estar da pós-modernidade. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar.
Bauman, Zygmunt. (2001). The individualized society. Cambridge: Polity.
Bauman, Zygmunt. (2010). Vida a crédito. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar.
Boltanski, Luc, & Chiapello, Ève. (2007). The new spirit of capitalism. London: Verso.
Bordo, Susan. (1997). O corpo e a reprodução da feminidade: uma apropriação feminista de Foucault. In Susan Bordo & Alison M. Jaggar (orgs.). Gênero, corpo e conhecimento (pp. 19-41). Rio de Janeiro: Rosa dos Tempos.
Crary, Jonathan. (2014). 24/7: capitalismo e os fins do sono. São Paulo: Cosac Naify.
Eehrenberg, Alain. (2000). La fatigue d’être soi: dépression et société. Paris: Odile Jacob.
Eehrenberg, Alain. (2010). O culto da performance: da aventura empreendedora à depressão nervosa. Tradução de Pedro Fernando Bendassolli. São Paulo: Ideias & Letras.
Fisher, Mark. (2009). Capitalist realism. Winchester: Zero Books.
Foucault, Michel. (1977). Vigiar e punir. Petrópolis: Vozes.
Foucault, Michel. (1988). História da sexualidade I: a vontade de saber. Rio de Janeiro: Graal.
Foucault, Michel. (2008). O nascimento da biopolítica. São Paulo: Martins Fontes.
Frantzen, Mikkel Krause. (2019). A future with no future: depression, the left, and the politics of mental health. Los Angeles Review of Books, December 16. Recuperado de: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/future-no-future-depression-left-politics-mental-health/
Graeber, David. (2018). Bullshit jobs: a theory. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Han, Byung-Chul. (2015). Sociedade do cansaço. Petrópolis: Vozes.
Hedva, Johanna. (2020) Sick woman theory. Recuperado de: https://johannahedva.com/SickWomanTheory_Hedva_2020.pdf
Honneth, Axel. (2004). Organised Self-Realization: Some Paradoxes of Individualization. European Journal of Social Theory, 7 (4), 463-78.
Horwitz, Allan, & Wakefield, Jerome. (2007). The loss of sadness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Karp, David A. (1997). Speaking of sadness: Depression, disconnection, and the meanings of illness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kramer, Peter. (1994). Listening to Prozac. New York: Viking.
Le Breton, David. (2018). Desaparecer de si: uma tentação contemporânea. Petrópolis: Vozes.
Leader, Darian. (2009). The new black: mourning, melancholia and depression. London: Penguin Books.
Lemke, Thomas. (2011). Critique and experience in Foucault. Theory, Culture & Society, 28 (4), 26-48.
Meltzer, Howard, Bebbington, Paul, Brugha, Traolach, Jenkins Rachel, McManus, Sally, & Dennis Michael. (2011). Personal debt and suicidal ideation. Psychological Medicine, 41(4), 771-8.
Peters, Gabriel. (2021). O novo espírito da depressão: imperativos de autorrealização e seus colapsos na modernidade tardia. Civitas, 21 (1), 71-83.
Plath, Sylvia. (2019). A redoma de vidro. Rio de Janeiro: Biblioteca Azul.
Ratcliffe, Matthew. (2015). Experiences of depression. Oxford University Press.
Rose, Nikolas. (1999). The powers of freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Vandenberghe, Frédéric. (2002). Working out Marx: Marxism and the end of the work society. Thesis Eleven, 69, 21-46.
Zizek, Slavoj. (1999). ‘You may!’. London Review of Books, 21 (6), 3-6.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Gabriel Peters
![Creative Commons License](http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/4.0/88x31.png)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
All content of the journal, except where identified, is licensed under a Creative Commons attribution-type 4.0 International