What comes after depression? Eight theses on the crisis of neoliberal subjectivity and its political implications

Abstract

In eight theses, this article advances the idea that many of the recent political processes can be seen to express a crisis not only of the social order institutionalised in the past decades but also of its corresponding form of subjectivity: namely, that of a neoliberal ‘entrepreneur of the self ’ whose experiences of psychological malaise came to be predominantly conceived of in terms of depression. It is in this sense that one may speak of a ‘post-depressive constellation’: a situation in which the social psychological tensions of the depressive order have reached a peak, leading to a variety of reactions and struggles but not yet to the establishment of a new consensus and a stable institutional framework. Two kinds of political process, in particular, can be understood as moments of such a constellation: collective effervescence and a novel form of right-wing authoritarianism.