Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies: Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics
Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies: Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics
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民主和其他新自由主义幻想：交往资本主义和左派政治
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发表时间：
2009
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通讯作者：
J. Dean
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作者：
J. Dean
民主和其他新自由主义的幻想是对美国实现进步的左翼政治的热情呼吁。通过对当代政治文化背后的意识形态的评估，乔迪·迪恩指责左翼向保守派投降，并未能为克林顿总统任期内实施的广泛的新自由主义承担责任。她认为，左翼发展和捍卫平等和团结的集体愿景的能力已经被“交流资本主义”的崛起、消费主义的星座、自我凌驾于集体利益之上以及对受害语言的接受所削弱。正如迪恩解释的那样，网络和其他网络通信媒体使交流资本主义成为可能，并加剧了这一趋势，这些媒体减少了政治能量，用于表达意见和传递情感。其结果是一种精神错乱的政治，确定性取代了可信度，强烈情感的循环超过了理性的交流。
迪恩的批评从她认为民主这个词已经成为左翼和右翼都引用的毫无意义的密码的论点，到对新自由主义背后的自由贸易幻想的分析，从对政客和左翼学者提出的新主权理论的审查，到对20世纪中叶以来美国总统演讲中不断变化的“邪恶”含义的审视。她强调，由决心不冒犯任何人的个人制定的政治是徒劳的，她研究了与9/11阴谋论有关的真理、知识和权力问题。迪恩坚持认为，任何重要和有目的的左翼政治的重建都需要摆脱受害的外衣，直面新自由主义和民主的联姻，并动员不同的术语来代表政治战略和目标。
Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies is an impassioned call for the realization of a progressive left politics in the United States. Through an assessment of the ideologies underlying contemporary political culture, Jodi Dean takes the left to task for its capitulations to conservatives and its failure to take responsibility for the extensive neoliberalization implemented during the Clinton presidency. She argues that the left’s ability to develop and defend a collective vision of equality and solidarity has been undermined by the ascendance of “communicative capitalism,” a constellation of consumerism, the privileging of the self over group interests, and the embrace of the language of victimization. As Dean explains, communicative capitalism is enabled and exacerbated by the Web and other networked communications media, which reduce political energies to the registration of opinion and the transmission of feelings. The result is a psychotic politics where certainty displaces credibility and the circulation of intense feeling trumps the exchange of reason.
Dean’s critique ranges from her argument that the term democracy has become a meaningless cipher invoked by the left and right alike to an analysis of the fantasy of free trade underlying neoliberalism, and from an examination of new theories of sovereignty advanced by politicians and left academics to a look at the changing meanings of “evil” in the speeches of U.S. presidents since the mid-twentieth century. She emphasizes the futility of a politics enacted by individuals determined not to offend anyone, and she examines questions of truth, knowledge, and power in relation to 9/11 conspiracy theories. Dean insists that any reestablishment of a vital and purposeful left politics will require shedding the mantle of victimization, confronting the marriage of neoliberalism and democracy, and mobilizing different terms to represent political strategies and goals.