Neoliberalism and subjective transformations: from cynicism to cruelty

CATANZARO, GISELA

México D F

Simposio; Pensar lo psicopolítico: una especulación sur-sur; 2018

Proyecto Filosofía y psicoanálisis como fronteras críticas de lo político, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad Autónoma de México

This text focuses on the psychic dimensions of politics which seem to be so fundamental to understand one of the main dimensions where ideology operates nowadays. The hypothesis I raise is that the ideological climate produced and simultaneously expressed by the political force currently ruling Argentina cannot be thought of in the mere continuity of previous neoliberal logics. It demands, rather, the conceptualization of new types of violence that emerge together with a specific absolutization of the present that is currently taking place. Characterized by many authors during the nineties as a sign of postmodernity, the absolutization of the present is not absolutely new and, still, it was only after 2008 that it reached a new level, turned acute and global. On this text I try to argue that both, at the subjective level and at the domain of the justifications provided by the order of the political discourse, that absolutization of the present tends to translate into a passage from what we might call the "old multicultural cynicism" to contemporary cruelty.