Addressing Spinoza's perennial question: “why do the masses fight
for their servitude as if it was salvation?”, _Capitalism and the
Limits of Desire_ examines the ways in which self-love as the care of
the self has become intertwined with self-love as the pursuit of
pleasure.
With ongoing austerity and misery for so many, why does capitalism
seem to be so insurmountable, so impossible to move beyond? John
Roberts offers a compelling response: it is because we love the love
of self that capitalism enables, even though it brings anxiety and
self-scrutiny. Capitalism in the form of commodities, and, more
importantly, the online platforms through which we express ourselves,
has become so much of who we are, of how we define self-love as
self-pleasure that it is difficult to imagine ourselves outside of it.
Roberts contends that disentangling ourselves from this collapsing of
self into capitalism is possible and that understanding the insidious
nature of capitalist thinking even when it comes to our deepest
pleasures is the starting point. Using early and late Marx, Lacan's
distinction between pleasure and desire and the recent debate on
perfectionism (Hurka) as his guides, Roberts lays out a way for
individuals to move forward and forge a link between self and desire
outside the oppressive demands of platform capitalism.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781350214965
Publisert
2021
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Bloomsbury UK
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter