Twilight of the Self: The Decline of the Individual in Late Capitalism

Michael Thompson

Published by Stanford University Press 2022

Twilight of the Self

The Decline of the Individual in Late Capitalism

Michael Thompson

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503632462

Overview
Contents

About this book

In this new work, political theorist Michael J. Thompson argues that modern societies are witnessing a decline in one of the core building blocks of modernity: the autonomous self.

Far from being an illusion of the Enlightenment, Thompson contends that the individual is a defining feature of the project to build a modern democratic culture and polity. One of the central reasons for its demise in recent decades has been the emergence of what he calls the "cybernetic society," a cohesive totalization of the social logics of the institutional spheres of economy, culture and polity. These logics have been progressively defined by the imperatives of economic growth and technical-administrative management of labor and consumption, routinizing patterns of life, practices, and consciousness throughout the culture. Evolving out of the neoliberal transformation of economy and society since the 1980s, the cybernetic society has transformed how that the individual is articulated in contemporary society. Thompson examines the various pathologies of the self and consciousness that result from this form of socialization—such as hyper-reification, alienated moral cognition, false consciousness, and the withered ego—in new ways to demonstrate the extent of deformation of modern selfhood. Only with a more robust, more socially embedded concept of autonomy as critical agency can we begin to reconstruct the principles of democratic individuality and community.

Author / Editor information

Michael J. Thompson is Professor of Political Theory at William Paterson University. He is the author of The Politics of Inequality (2007), The Domestication of Critical Theory (2016), and, most recently, The Specter of Babel: A Reconstruction of Political Judgment (2020).

Reviews

"In the tradition of the great diagnostic philosophers—from Marx and Nietzsche, Lukács and Foucault, to Wendy Brown, Nancy Fraser, and Rahel Jaeggi—Michael J. Thompson's Twilight of the Self probes the central problems of contemporary social and political life. Like a 'doctor' for 'sick cultures,' this ambitious book seeks to identify the source of our ailment, theorize its origins, and prescribe a treatment."—Jeremy Kingston Cynamon, The Review of Politics

"Thompson is a preeminent scholar who has produced a controversial, interdisciplinary work that speaks to the future of the critical tradition. This is an innovative and important work that deserves to be read."—Stephen Eric Bronner, Rutgers University

"Thompson ranges confidently over philosophy, psychoanalysis, and economics in this thoughtful and original study of the individual in a mass society."—Russell Jacoby, University of California, Los Angeles

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
part i: our steely encasement
1. The Rise of Cybernetic Society: The Patterned World and the Fate of the Individual Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
2. Social Domination, Social Systems, and the Constitution of the Self Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	74
3. The Reification Problem and the Normative Entanglement Hypothesis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
part II: an anatomy of heteronomy
4. Alienation: From Autonomy to Moral Atrophy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
5. Reconsidering False Consciousness: An Etiology of Defective Social Cognition Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	151
6. Cultivating Consent: Reification and the Web of Norms Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
7. The Withering of the Self and the Regression of the Ego Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	192
part III: to the lighthouse
8. Autonomy as Critical Agency: Reconstructing the Democratic Self Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	273
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	313
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	331

Language: English
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 348
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 4
Keywords: autonomy; individuality; technology studies; capitalism; social cybernetics; ideology; critical theory; reification; alienation

eBook

Published: August 9, 2022
ISBN: 9781503632462