Does Addiction Have A Subject?: Desire in Contemporary U.S. Culture

Abstract

This paper traces the emergence of a new figure of the desiring subject in contemporary addiction science and in three other recent cultural developments: the rise of cognitive-behavior therapy, the self-tracking movement, and the dissemination of ratings. In each, the subject’s desire becomes newly figured as a response to objects rather than a manifestation of the soul, measured numerically rather than expressed in language and rendered impersonal rather than individualizing. Together, these developments suggest a shift in the dominant form of the desiring subject in contemporary U.S. culture, one that breaks with the subject-form that Foucault theorized five decades ago.