Twilight of the Self: The Decline of the Individual in Late Capitalism

by: Michael Thompson (Author)
Edition: 1st

Publication Date: August 9, 2022

Language: English

Print Length: 348 pages

ISBN-10: 150363244X

ISBN-13: 9781503632448

Book Description

In this new work, political theorist Michael J. Thompson argues that mode societies are witnessing a decline in one of the core building blocks of modeity: the autonomous self. Far from being an illusion of the Enlightenment, Thompson contends that the individual is a defining feature of the project to build a mode democratic culture and polity. One of the central reasons for its demise in recent decades has been the emergence of what he calls the “cybeetic society,” a cohesive totalization of the social logics of the institutional spheres of economy, culture and polity. These logics have been progressively defined by the imperatives of economic growth and technical-administrative management of labor and consumption, routinizing pattes of life, practices, and consciousness throughout the culture. Evolving out of the neoliberal transformation of economy and society since the 1980s, the cybeetic society has transformed how that the individual is articulated in contemporary society. Thompson examines the various pathologies of the self and consciousness that result from this form of socialization—such as hyper-reification, alienated moral cognition, false consciousness, and the withered ego—in new ways to demonstrate the extent of deformation of mode selfhood. Only with a more robust, more socially embedded concept of autonomy as critical agency can we begin to reconstruct the principles of democratic individuality and community.
In this new work, political theorist Michael J. Thompson argues that mode societies are witnessing a decline in one of the core building blocks of modeity: the autonomous self. Far from being an illusion of the Enlightenment, Thompson contends that the individual is a defining feature of the project to build a mode democratic culture and polity. One of the central reasons for its demise in recent decades has been the emergence of what he calls the “cybeetic society,” a cohesive totalization of the social logics of the institutional spheres of economy, culture and polity. These logics have been progressively defined by the imperatives of economic growth and technical-administrative management of labor and consumption, routinizing pattes of life, practices, and consciousness throughout the culture. Evolving out of the neoliberal transformation of economy and society since the 1980s, the cybeetic society has transformed how that the individual is articulated in contemporary society. Thompson examines the various pathologies of the self and consciousness that result from this form of socialization—such as hyper-reification, alienated moral cognition, false consciousness, and the withered ego—in new ways to demonstrate the extent of deformation of mode selfhood. Only with a more robust, more socially embedded concept of autonomy as critical agency can we begin to reconstruct the principles of democratic individuality and community. Read more