Your daily fascism: investments of desire in the modern era

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Notes

1 Relevant here is the refrain of the subject within neoliberal discourse. Wendy Larner (2000) and David Harvey (2005) question why citizens accepted the neoliberal program offering ‘so little in return'. Aiwa Ong (2007) and Jamie Peck (2010) attempt to understand to what degree agency exists for individuals, while Wendy Brown (2003) evokes the rational, ‘responsibilized’ neoliberal subject. This array attempts to understand the subject in relation to the structural forces of neoliberalism, but generally fails to capture our complicit—and often irrational—role within this structuring force.

2 Slavoj Žižek (2001) also offers an account of the compatible drives towards consensus building. The communitarian ideals that Iris Marion Young (1990) criticizes also point to the danger that exists when we set aside ‘difference’ to come together, while Juan Linz (2000) points to fascism as having the appearance of a ‘perfect democracy’.

3 In ‘Postscript on Societies of Control', Deleuze analyzes this new amorphous data-driven world and the individual contribution to its new forms of control. He asserted the need for different tools to confront this new social milieu, which appears ever more relevant today.

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Cheryl Gilge

Cheryl Gilge received her PhD in 2014 from the College of Built Environments, University of Washington.