Julia Krzesicka
(Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, University of Warsaw)
Abstract:
Taking as a starting point the thesis of Eva Illouz about the creation of “emotional capitalism” as a result of, among others, “therapeutization” of public and organizational discourse (Illouz, 2010: 98). I want to reflect on the role of emotions in the future of work. On the one hand, emotions become an important element of cognitive capitalism, in which the dematerialization of work and the subsequent domination of the service sector has reduced the importance of physical skills – manipulation of things – in favor of interpersonal competences – the ability to manipulate people and their emotions. (Szahaj 2014: 16-17). On the other hand, emotionality is closely related to the creation of an “individual self”, which increasingly becomes a subject of therapeutic culture based on “communicative competence”. The connection of the economic sphere with “communicative competence” made this first “deeply soaked by affect” (Illouz, 2010: 37). Although the imposed paradigm of communication frameworks (along with a whole set of procedures to manage emotions) makes it rather “rationalized emotionalism”, expressing emotions in the form of a message neutralizes emotional dynamics, requiring “suspense of someone’s emotional entanglement” (Illouz, 2010: 58) and at the same time allows to legitimize feelings by “the very fact of expressing them” (Illouz, 2010: 59). Work, as a social activity, has not escaped the influence of the paradigm of “therapeutization” both in the case of the “working subject” (whose success depends on the “emotional capital”), as well as in the case of the object and purpose of the work (which is being increasingly entangled with the problem of user experience – an experience that should be designed in such a way as to evoke certain emotions). Finally, looking into the future, it is worth asking a question about the possible role of widely understood “social robots” in such emerging fields of work.
Illouz, E. (2010). Uczucia w dobie kapitalizmu. Warszawa: Oficyna Naukowa.
Szahaj, A. (2014). Kapitalizm kognitywny jako ideologia. Etyka, 48, 17-25.
Julia Krzesicka – MA of Sociology, PhD Student within the Nature-Culture Program at University of Warsaw, Faculty of “Artes Liberales”.