HUMAN HELPLESSNESS AND FORMATIVE SOLIDARITY: A CRITIQUE OF NEOLIBERAL PERVERSITY

Abstract

The impact of neoliberal rationality on the formation of the subject is devastating, causes an ethical breach, and shatters the inter-human bond. This essay approaches this issue from the perspective of philosophy, psychoanalysis and education, relating three axes – neoliberal rationality, subject, and obscurantism. From a philosophical-psychoanalytic perspective, neoliberal rationality and obscurantism require erasing the other to carry out their project of occupation of bodies, minds and lives. By implementing a system of relationships based on indifference, the erasure of the other produces subjectivities that adapt to it, and perpetuate themselves. As a counterpoint to the perverse rule of erasing one’s fellow human being, we turn to ethics in Freud, which is governed by the principle of inclusion of fellow human beings as a central formative experience of human existence.