Václav Sklenář
(University of Pardubice)
Abstract:
In 2009, two masterly analyses of brutality inherent in the neoliberal order emerged: Berardi’s Precarious Rhapsody and Fisher’s Capitalist Realism. These texts uncovered twofold systemic brutality. First, unlimited deregulation of free market destroys the public sphere and subjects it to the process of commodification. At the same time, cyber space filled with innumerable transmitters overburdens our nervous systems with an amount of information and interpellations which we are unable to process meaningfully. The first attack brutalizes public spaces, while the second invades the subject in such a way that it restructures its constitution and brings about psychological and cognitive disorders in forms of over-excitation, dyslexia and panic. This results in desensitization, disaffection, social dissociation, and aggressiveness towards both oneself and others. Berardi and Fisher attempted to formulate strategies for emancipation. For Fisher, the instability of neoliberal order was signalled by the appalling rise of psychological illness, while Berardi saw opportunity in new forms of organization of mass intellectual labour.
Fifteen years later, the system seems to be even more impenetrable than before, producing ever more aggressivity in the form of wars, political violence, school shootings, generalized masochism, and so on. My presentation will focus on the ways in which neoliberalism reacted to threats to its stability presented by Fisher and Berardi. My thesis is that emancipatory opportunities have been blocked by a renewal of disaster capitalism, starting with covid and followed by many other states of emergency. This strategy submits us to ever harsher conditions of competition on the one hand, while presenting ever more threats to what is called “our way of life” on the other. Constant fear for economic and bare physical survival is added to the information overload, showing that while Fisher’s and Berardi’s analysis is still valid, we need to look for new and more complex strategies to break the vicious circle of systemic and individual aggressivity.
Bio:
Dr. Václav Sklenář has recently started his academic career as an assistant professor at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at University of Pardubice. His work focuses on Hegelianism and critical theory as sources for rethinking and restructuring current political frameworks.
