"Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies" is an impassioned call
for the realization of a progressive left politics in the United
States. Through an assessment of the ideologies underlying
contemporary political culture, Jodi Dean takes the left to task
for its capitulations to conservatives and its failure to take
responsibility for the extensive neoliberalization implemented
during the Clinton presidency. She argues that the left's ability
to develop and defend a collective vision of equality and
solidarity has been undermined by the ascendance of "communicative
capitalism," a constellation of consumerism, the privileging of the
self over group interests, and the embrace of the language of
victimization. As Dean explains, communicative capitalism is
enabled and exacerbated by the Web and other networked
communications media, which reduce political energies to the
registration of opinion and the transmission of feelings. The
result is a psychotic politics where certainty displaces
credibility and the circulation of intense feeling trumps the
exchange of reason.
Dean's critique ranges from her argument that the term
"democracy" has become a meaningless cipher invoked by the left and
right alike to an analysis of the fantasy of free trade underlying
neoliberalism, and from an examination of new theories of
sovereignty advanced by politicians and left academics to a look at
the changing meanings of "evil" in the speeches of U.S. presidents
since the mid-twentieth century. She emphasizes the futility of a
politics enacted by individuals determined not to offend anyone,
and she examines questions of truth, knowledge, and power in
relation to 9/11 conspiracy theories. Dean insists that any
reestablishment of a vital and purposeful left politics will
require shedding the mantle of victimization, confronting the
marriage of neoliberalism and democracy, and mobilizing different
terms to represent political strategies and goals.
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