What's left of subjectivity

sleep, depression and other "passive resistances" to capitalist subjectivation

Abstract

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.