Age of Anxiety E-Book

Constantine Tsoucalas

• Herausgeber: ERIS
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 159

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

We live in an age of ever-deepening anxiety. Free of convictions, released from certainties, we appear untethered and alone. The values that underpinned our sense of, and need for, collectivity have been reduced to their lowest common denominator: liberty means nothing more than exploiting our individuality; equality has become an empty political slogan; as for solidarity, it's nowhere to be seen. Such ruptures are neither accidental nor benign. The not-so-brave new social mandates are outgrowths of globalisation's casualties: complete eclipsing of political sovereignty, gradual weakening of national identities, and breakdown of the welfare state. The situation is one of crisis. In this revelatory contribution to political science and sociology, Constantine Tsoucalas draws upon a wide range of philosophical discourses to understand and diagnose our anxious, opiate-seeking age, and to suggest that identity and difference have been incorporated into the deepest substratum of capital, culminating in our times's greatest woe: the extreme fetishization of the self. This second edition includes a new introduction from the author and is a revised translation.

Leseprobe

Age of Anxiety

ERIS

265 Riverside Dr.

New York, NY 10025

86—90 Paul Street

London EC2A 4NE

All rights reserved

Copyright © Constantine Tsoucalas, 2010, 2024

Translation © Alex Stavrakas, 2018, 2024

Originally published in Greece by Kastaniotis in 2010

This second English edition published by Eris in 2024

The right of Constantine Tsoucalas to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

ISBN 978-1-6809-69-7

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Eris Press.

Cover design: André Kertész, Distortion #117, (detail),1933, gelatin silver print, 32.2 × 23.5 cm,© 2024 Estate of André Kertész

eris.press

INTRODUCTION

one — IDENTITY

two — FUTURE

three — ALCHEMY

four — GLOBALISATION

five — PERSONAL DESTINY

six — GUARANTEED EMPLOYMENT - LIFELONG LEARNING

seven — HISTORY

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

Whether we are conscious of it or not, we have all fallen out of the tree of modernity. We keep trying to comprehend how we got here and what we are meant to be doing, as parts of a large cosmos amid which we float. We keep returning to the same problems: our relationship with one another; the essence of human nature; society and its origins; the whys and wherefores of our actions; the organizing of our collective existence; our individual self-improvement; the limits to self-knowledge and to self-reliance. Questions that revolve around the same modern postulate: freedom.

If we were to look for a distinct ideational line running through the last thirty years, we would find it in the unprecedented and indeed obsessive proliferation of endings: the end of history, the end of the political, the end of ideology, the end of grand narratives, the end of visionary thinking and of imagination—the end, in short, of nuance. Concurrent with all these endings, we witnessed the gradual transition from government to administration, the enfeeblement—and at times demonization—of the concept of sovereignty, the loosening of territorial lines and national identities, and that of closed borders and social boundaries. The world was led to believe that in this emergent new world order, market economies could simply keep multiplying indefinitely; and that, left to themselves, so-called ‘globalized free markets’ would provide sufficient guarantees for an indefinite increase of capitalist prosperity.

People were thus coerced into finding solace in the idea of a rational—and, therefore, allegedly impartial—adjudication underwritten by a market economy where every person was given a chance to freely and independently pursue their private goals. Having conceded that the world as they had come to know it would keep marching on indefinitely, people felt relieved of any debt or shared obligation to their peers, to all public concerns, and even to a shared future. They seemed surreptitiously to accept that collective progress could only come from the ultimate de-politicization and dispassionate unfastening of all social goings-on, both personal and collective. After 200 years of squabbling, the moral quandary of what must be done seemed miraculously to have been settled: progress is (and is thought of as being) categorically and inherently concomitant with unfettered growth of the market economy. In other words, “more is more” and “only too much is enough”.

The result was a world where the paper sovereignty and previously involvement-bearing political power had been relieved of its cares and duties, especially any that darkened the blue skies of our quantifiable life with any kind of misgivings. Unsurprisingly, ceaseless production in developed Western countries was self-guaranteed so long as it satisfied one condition: that nothing would be allowed to interfere with the normal functioning of financial markets. The world would have to bet its future on the only game in town: the objectively impartial, auto-pilot rationality of a free market that nobody is allowed to meddle with. The good life would never again have to be imagined and expressed as a series of conscious collective political and ideological choices; and, in order to freely perform with unrivalled efficiency its theretofore institutional function as the ultimate arbiter of a self-perpetuating world order, the now-dormant political power did well to put on hold, if not completely renounce, its age-old pastoral duties. So far, so miserable.

But the history that we were told had irrevocably ended turned out to have other plans when, suddenly, the global world order was exposed by its own internal contradictions. Aside from its purely financial consequences, the 2008 crisis challenged the system’s underlying haughtiness. After twenty years of buoyant neoliberalism, the world of free markets was plunged into doubt and disquiet. Overnight, a new order of things pulled the rug from under the feet of the tireless apologists for growth-oriented progress. In this new environment, the immiseration of large swathes of people, widespread insecurity, and the exacerbation of existing inequalities deprived the system of its familiar gloss and its self-validating pretext. All over the world, increasing numbers of ‘free’ people were forced to curtail their aspirations, discount their hopes, and start focusing on mere survival. The full-of-promise two-thirds societies gradually gave way to one-third (and sometimes even less) societies. The golden carriage of enjoying the spoils of a purportedly trickling-down prosperity turned into the disorienting pumpkin of despair. What ‘social contract’ are we talking about? The unspoken political deal between the many seekers of a somewhat successful and moderately prosperous life and their few super-powerful and privileged fellows had been shredded.

While it might seem like it is the best solution, returning to a universalist interventional politics is simply not enough to get us out of the various global impasses with which we are now faced. We must seek to start again at the beginning, inspired by the less-than-perfect invocations of our outmoded Enlightenment. We must commit anew to a common and resolute value system that will inform our political decisions, starting with perceptions of propriety which are nonetheless always vulnerable to ever-developing global events. At the same time, a network of competitive relations which until recently operated as the aggregate of numerous zero-sum games will have to be replaced by a positive-sum mechanism.

Only then will we be able to turn our attention to the regulatory conundrums that are rooted in a standardized but compulsory interplay between the age-old notions of liberty, equality, and solidarity and, of course, justice. Naturally, for such an idea to take hold it would take more than even the most radical political intervention in modes of production, or the boldest redistribution of goods and of services. What the situation calls for is a thoroughgoing reconsideration of the totality of human needs, wants, desires, and consumer habits, and of everything else that activates inherently insatiable demands, replenishes the—democratic or otherwise—generalized consent to the current system, and reproduces the existing dynamic of our global network of production. Furthermore, this would be impossible to achieve as the straightforward consequence even of a multi-level and far-reaching ‘cultural revolution’—one that would aim at infusing questions of how and why it might still be possible and defensible to produce more and better products (and by whom those products might be produced) with ethical quandaries like “which products should continue to be produced everywhere, by any means possible, and by just about anybody?” What ought really to be the focus of attention is those goods and services that should not be produced or offered by anyone, anywhere, period.

Faced with interlinked environmental dead ends, we have no alternative but to build a common collective subjectivity based on an objectively advancing ‘humankind’, and articulated using new and open post- and supra-territorial normative declarations and priorities. We are not only entitled to think of alternatives for a better life; it is also within our rights to review and, potentially, revise the common belief which offers us equality in the face of global threats and solidarity in the face of shared needs only on the condition that neither challenges the freedom that underwrites self-interested individualism. This would entail a radical revision of the conceptual substance of the fundamental modern idea of ‘progress’.

In order to defeat the mercenary fragmentation of all personal, collective, and political viewpoints and decisions, we need nothing less than a root-and-branch revision of our entire way of thinking. A new universal ‘duty’ (un-free or post-free but, in any case, fairly distributed) to participate in a common human fate would seek to replace the played-out rights to alterity and prosperity and their attendant personal and collective societal proclivities. Understanding the world as a unified biosphere that is under threat primarily from insubordinate man-made agents underscores the need to focus again on our necessarily shifting ideas about progress for all, about a kaleidoscopic common good, and about a self-evident common interest.

Something similar would have to happen to the open-ended and multifaceted idea of ‘progress’ which, not at all accidentally, began at some point to be impregnated by the even vaguer but certainly pugnacious notion of ‘sustainability’. It goes without saying that this new development is entirely the result of a widespread sense that an impasse—one that is not just ecological and that is derived from indiscriminate economic growth—has been reached. What remains glaringly unaddressed is the great political question of what must be developed without sacrificing sustainability, and of who decides this. In other words, the question of how and why it will be possible to suggest a hierarchical ranking of the qualities and quantities of both current measurable values and future value projections.

There are no deducible answers to these questions. References to a Blochian ‘not-yet-being’ ontology cannot be developed from within an airtight value system that remains content to just ‘(appear to be) being indefinitely’. We may have no better option than to imagine an ideal world where the widespread disaffection engendered by rationalism is fertilised by the necessary optimism of an incurably irrational ‘post-will’. Let’s see.

ONE

IDENTITY

Takes its Place on the Political Stage

Panta rhei. Everything flows—in nature, in society, in our minds. Our thoughts, like living organisms, are in a state of constant flux. They succumb to external pressures and obey unknown laws, they move relentlessly, accelerating and slowing down, advancing and retreating, attempting sudden leaps along a route that has neither direction nor end. The historical selection of ideas resembles the natural selection of species: the resilience of meanings in this march toward an unknown destination is unpredictable, and the dust of intellectual progress that is scattered by the relentless survival struggle will only retrospectively appear settled. What exists tends to be reproduced wholesale, while newcomers must overcome the inertia of social dynamics and the reflexes that existing semantic orders trigger. Worldviews aren’t deposed voluntarily. In a state of vigilant wakefulness, established ideas tend to defend themselves against insidious intruders, whereas new ones, like spermatozoa, look for eggs to fertilise.

But wakefulness itself isn’t something new: societies have always found ways to handle newcomers. What has changed is the way novelty is perceived: intuitions are ever more frequently undermined, ideological convictions weakened, certainties readily abandoned, and entire value systems are deconstructed and reassembled anew overnight. Misreading Arthur Rimbaud ( “we must at all costs remain absolutely modern” ), zealots of unrestrained modernisation have fetishised newness: conceptual constructs seem finally rid of the compulsion to eternally repeat the same over and over; new ideas, regardless of their actual merit, are perceived ipso jure superior to old ones; even language can’t tame the forces of change; it finds itself subordinated to them. And the terms that provide access to the valid-as-true have been accorded their own unique political standing.

Talk of identity and difference must, then, take into account three facts: one, the discourse’s merciless intrusion into an already disturbed setting; two, the eagerness with which it is being imposed; and, three, the effortlessness with which it seems to be displacing the established order. Difference, in stark contrast with patterns that heretofore designated the political field, is suddenly no longer just a natural state but a critical claim. The unprecedented clamour of demands for recognition, talk of the individual’s right to difference, and issues surrounding multiculturalism all herald an ideological turn with unpredictable consequences. When difference and multiculturalism take the place of homogeneity and unitarity, the very coordinates of social organisation are at stake.

This means that notions which are at the core of the individual’s relation to the social collective will migrate to the centre of socio-political enquiry. Bearers of institutionalised and incontestable personal rights, individuals will have to embrace the additional task of determining their identity and carving out their own unique otherness. Even if these developments do not immediately register as explicit regulatory adjustments, the shift in attitude is itself telling of a new era. Things are unfolding as if the existential uncertainty of modern socio-political thought has been forced to give way to an external and standardised conformity regarding primordial alterity. The already unconvincing answers to the question Who am I? are for the first time in recent history being elevated to objects of systemic control. Identity is politicised.

This book tells the story of this ideological remodelling. It focuses on the current political discourse that revolves around identity and difference, a discourse that is entirely symptomatic of our times. Regardless of complex ethical parameters, underlying this ostensibly pathological obsession with individuality and freedom of choice, with collective identity, with recognition1, and with difference2 is a widespread confusion caused by radical shifts in the historical function of social collectives and of the state. It’s not at all surprising that this sudden outburst of discussion about identity is happening at a time when, one, the ideological cohesion and conceptual wholesomeness of liberal societies is in decline; and, two, conventional understandings of the relation between individual and society, national and supranational, political and cultural, and, more generally, between the individual and its social surrounding are all undergoing sweeping transformations. Seen in this light, the right to difference seems inextricably tied to a semantic redefinition of the conditions of differentiation within the social setting. If representations of the person’s place in the world and the terms used for understanding society as a solid and incontestable cultural unity are being reconsidered, the same will happen to the terms concerning human self-knowledge. And, if Gadamer was right that “more than anything, understanding constitutes being and produces history”3, then we might indeed be at a turning point. Although it remains impossible to deduce any intention as such behind a historical happening that is stubbornly refusing to end, we have every reason to believe—hope, even—that the period we are going through is transitional.

One thing is certain: as far as the terms that we use for understanding ourselves and society are concerned, the break with the recent past is by any measure a radical one. Around the world, delineated and conceptually airtight socio-cultural schemas have been replaced by increasingly open, and precarious, even unruly, social formations. The cohesion, stability, and self-sufficiency of grand narratives have all been irrevocably compromised. Its political context aside, Thatcher’s emblematic catchphrase, “ There’s no such thing as society: there are individual men and women ” , seems to capture the essence of an age when singular, imaginarily invested, and objectively definable collectives that sustained individuals have been replaced by a vitiating cluster of alternatives. Traditional forms of nostalgia and the societies that induced them will never be the same again. Solid and shared symbolic structures have found themselves knee-deep in boundless individualism, saturated with an amorphous anti-statist sentiment, and corroded by an overabundance of irreconcilable signals, symbols, and choices, and can therefore no longer function as the palpable reproductive hubs of meaning they once were.4 Those ideological bonding agents which guaranteed cultural homogeneity and self-determination in societies have been incapacitated, debilitated, and, worse, privatised. We are drifting within a constellation of universal haziness, increased vagueness, and semantic disorder. It has become harder to identify any kind of objective historical substantiality whilst remaining capable of deciphering the meaning and limits of information.5 Even if we want to change the world, we have no idea how to do so, or where to start, or what tools to use, or, even, what it is we want to change.

To make matters worse, this lack of focus has distorted the psychological parameters of socialisation. It has weakened the reassuring sense of belonging to a finite, stable, and coherent social whole. Fewer people than ever seek to satisfy their practical or existential needs as members of some collective entity. Fewer, still, find comfort in the embrace of a multitude that allows them to express their impulses and manage their inborn panics.6 People are still free not to overestimate the effectiveness of their personal desires and acts7 and also to remain wary of the options available to them8. Nonetheless they are expected to toil in solitude to acquire their own values and their own meanings, to understand the world and name its contents using their own terms, to choose their own course of action, and to solve their own problems, privately. The range of personal choice has expanded, offering abundant and often contradictory messages outside of shared networks of meanings and symbols.9 This type of freedom owes its appeal to the fact that, like an object of faith, it can be neither proven nor refuted10, which explains why it is being offered as both a universal cure and a placebo.11 But, like most conventional wisdoms, it has proven to be a sham: the expansion of liberties hasn’t delivered the dawn of a new age of reason that we were promised. Our current convictions are neither more rational nor less irrational than the ones they deposed. On the contrary: disenchantment never seemed a more distant prospect.12

TWO

TheFUTURE

Appears

This book is divided into five parts, and it all begins with the claim that any understanding of identity and difference must be socio-historical. The meaning and function of words is intrinsically bound to the particular conceptual schemes within which these words emerge. In this sense, the unfolding of social representations of identity must be contextualised within a wider range of ideas that originated in eighteenth-century European thought. Whether legitimate children or bastards of the Enlightenment, we are all still clinging to its apron strings. Tacitly or not, we agree that all statements—including those that vainly attempt to elucidate the issue of who we are—must be articulated and substantiated rationally, and that they must comply with the fundamental, universal, and inalienable value of liberty.1 Before we can even pose a question, we must think and speak as rational and free agents.