Roberto Nigro

Leuphana University Lüneburg

Genealogy and Critique of Neoliberal Subjectivity

31 May 2022, 17h00 (Lisbon Summer Time — GMT+1)

Sala Mattos Romão (Room C201.J – Department of Philosophy) | School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

If one of the tasks of philosophy consists in defining the time in which we live, how can we characterize our present? Perhaps the most appropriate answer to this question is the one situating it in the singular plural event that was 1968: a name and an event that entails a plurality of meanings. 1968 in a broad sense marked our contemporary time indelibly. At issue in some critical positions is sometimes an idea of 1968 as the dawn of neoliberal society. In other (diametrically opposed) accounts a sort of “left wing melancholia” emerges. Firstly, my talk will critically discuss these positions. Then, in a second step, it will examine two genealogical pathways, which may help to define the emergence of neoliberal subjectivity: the first one shows the link between neoliberal subjectivity and the practices of pastoral power elaborated in early Christianity and is indebted to Michel Foucault. The second one examines the development of neoliberalism by dint of conflictual dynamics that took place in the post-68 in the form of a capitalistic reaction to the movements, which struggled against the disciplinary society and the patriarchal capitalism.