Abstract
This contribution focuses on Andreas Reckwitz’s considerations on phenomena of ‘exhausted self-realization’ and ‘disappointment’ in The Society of Singularities, as well as in his follow-up volume, The End of Illusions. Under discussion is the range of analytical distinctions that tend to come into play in this area between what one might call a generally primordial concept of self-realization and more derivative articulations of the concept that exhibit various aspects of instrumentalization—variously termed ‘self-maximization’ or ‘self-optimization’. The paper argues that while Reckwitz’s work offers great resources for an understanding of how and why ‘self-realization’ so frequently appears to take on an instrumentalizing character in late-modern social behaviour, the extent to which his work attributes this tendency to a wholly immanent cultural-cognitive logic of lifestyle singularization is open to criticism. The reasons must also be sought from within the more directly economic contexts of diminished material security and solidarity typical of contemporary societies shaped by neoliberal economic governance orders at the level of policy.
References
Apparadurai, A., and N. Alexander. 2019. Failure. Cambridge: Polity.Search in Google Scholar
Becker, E. 1973. The Denial of Death. New York: Simon & Schuster.Search in Google Scholar
Bellah, R. N. 1985. Habits of the Heart. Berkeley: University of California Press.Search in Google Scholar
Berlant, L. 2011. Cruel Optimism. Durham: Duke University Press.10.1515/9780822394716Search in Google Scholar
Berman, M. 1970. The Politics of Authenticity: Radical Individualism and the Emergence of Modern Society. London: Atheneum.Search in Google Scholar
Bollas, C. 2018. Meaning and Melancholia. London: Routledge.10.4324/9781351018500Search in Google Scholar
Cassirer, E. 1932. Philosophy of the Enlightenment, tr. F. C. A. Koelln, and J. P. Pettegrove. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951.Search in Google Scholar
Craib, I. 1994. The Importance of Disappointment. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Erikson, E. 1959. Identity and the Life Cycle. New York: Norton.Search in Google Scholar
Frizzell, N. 2021. The Panic Years. London: Penguin.Search in Google Scholar
Fromm, E. 1941. The Escape from Freedom. New York: Farrar & Rinehart.Search in Google Scholar
James, E. L. 2011. Fifty Shades of Grey. London: Random House.Search in Google Scholar
Klotz, A. C. 2021. The Great Resignation. Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post.Search in Google Scholar
Malesic, J. 2022. The End of Burnout. Berkeley: University of California Press.10.1525/9780520975347Search in Google Scholar
Marcuse, H. 1956. Eros and Civilization. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Mill, J. S. 1859. On Liberty. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1863.Search in Google Scholar
Reckwitz, A. 2012. “Die Erfindung der Kreativität, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.” In The Invention of Creativity, tr. S. Back. Cambridge: Polity, 2017.Search in Google Scholar
Reckwitz, A. 2017. “Die Gesellschaft der Singularitäten, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.” In The Society of Singularities, tr. V. A. Pakis. Cambridge: Polity, 2020.Search in Google Scholar
Reckwitz, A. 2019. “Das Ende der Illusionen, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.” In The End of Illusions, tr. V. A. Pakis, 203–38. Cambridge: Polity (hereafter ‘EI’).Search in Google Scholar
Seemiller, C., and M. Grace. 2019. Generation Z: A Century in the Making. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780429442476Search in Google Scholar
Taylor, C. 1989. Sources of the Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Tillich, P. 1952. The Courage to Be. New Haven: Yale University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Weeks, J. 1985. Sexuality and its Discontents. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Weeks, J. 2010. Sexuality, 3rd ed. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Weeks, K. 2011. The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries. Durham: Duke University Press.10.1215/9780822394723Search in Google Scholar
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
