In their discussion of what the media theorist Nick Couldry calls its ‘theatre of cruelty’, Henry Giroux and Philip Mirowski, among many others, have have written extensively on neoliberalism’s sadistic culture, the increasingly open vilification of ‘losers’ and the crowing of and over ‘winners’. Swathes of mass entertainment celebrate physical agony (‘torture porn’), metaphorical ‘eviction’ (reality TV) and the punitive gaze at the desperate – leavened with the schmaltz that is its obverse. As Mirowski points out, in Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, it is not, of course, that ‘spectacles of cruelty’ are new, but that the theatre is ‘unabashed’, ‘has been made to seem so unexceptional’; and that in the context of neoliberalism it is doing something distinct. It serves, he says, ‘more targeted purposes [than distraction], such as teaching techniques optimised to reinforce the neoliberal self’.

(CW for SA, colonial atrocity, and war crime descriptions in the linked article)

[–] iie@hexbear.net 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Great essay, the psychological side of neoliberalism needs a bigger spotlight.

[–] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

A very good essay in terms of the ideas it conveys but unfortunately poorly written, very inaccessible on account of its overly pretentious language. Even most academically educated leftists are going to struggle to read a piece like this. This is the exactly the kind of language that we should not be using if we want to write for a broad audience. It comes across as the author trying to show off how many complex words they know and how many references to history and philosophy they can pack in without explaining any of them. It comes off elitist and off-putting. 9/10 for content, 1/10 for style.