{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5","title":"Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5","id":"2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5","uuid":"2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5","title":"Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics","normalized_title":"democracyandotherneoliberalfantasiescommunicativecapitalismandleftpolitics","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"isbns":[],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":229,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Democracy%20and%20Other%20Neoliberal%20Fantasies%20Communicative%20Capitalism%20and%20Left%20Politics","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/2619284f-c364-4de3-bdf4-82f768dbc1c5/search"},"page":{"printed_page":16,"pdf_page":26,"physical_index":26,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"ce0b73a18d619a31d0a88c2bbd355ea0892121754918840f9903a2211e94a349"},"chapter":"Comunicative Capitalism & Left Politics","content":"Vhile Zizek's version of post-politics is helpful in identifying the failure of the contemporary left, it is wrong as a general point. In the United States, the right actively politicizes school curricula, climate science, stem cell research, Christmas, the judiciary, marriage, adoption, punishment, and the family. Every issue is made to stand for something beyond itself, an indication of weakness or resolve, a sign of support for us or them. Conservatives are not seeking individualized, therapeutic, or administrative answers. They want the intervention of law. They raise their claims to the status of a universal. They appeal to values of chastity, decency, piety, unity, order, and civility as universally valid principles and ideals. Neoliberals similarly argue in terms of universals. Their claim is that the market is the best way to arrange production, distribution, and consump\" tion, not that it is the best way only for the privileged and wealthy. Here again, the not�on of depoliticization fails to click on the imbrications of capitalism and democracy, the injunctions and failures to enjoy, and the intertwinings of certainty and skepticism charact�ristic of the current conjuncture. A premise of this book is that a political theory informed by recent work in psychoanalysis (primarily Zizek's Lacanian Marxism) is one way to access these sites and contribute to the project of politicizing the left.32\n\nTo be sure, the American left is not completely without vision. It uni.; formly asserts the primacy of democracy (which I critique in chapter 3) and less uruiormly but equaly unfortunately advocates generosity and responsiveness (which I critique in chapter s).33 Left enthusiasm for democracy leads me to Wendy Brown's analysis of contemporary U.S. politics in terms of de-democratization. In a rich discussion of the convergence of neoliberalism and neoconservatism, she highlights de-democratization as its central force and threat. The details of Brown's analysis are evocative, but her overall account is unpersuasive because it both presumes a prior democracy, a previous acceptance and practice of democracy that is now unraveling, and neglects the hegemony of democratic rhetoric today. Democracy has long been a contested category in U.S. politics, subordinated to individual and states' rights, valued less than elites' property and privilege, and easily pushed aside in times of war, cold and otherwise. Anxieties over the tyranny of the majority, the great unwashed, immigrants, Catholics, workers, women, blacks, and the young have infused the American system since its inception. The combination of civil rights, students, and new social movements in the 196os with rapid expansion in communications media enabling people to register their opinions, contact representatives, and organize gatherings and protests has, contra Brown, realized democratic aspirations to a previously unimaginable degree. Even as banal a statistic as voter turnout supports my claim that the current conjuncture is not well conceptualized with the notion of de-democratization: the turnout of the voting age population in the United States in the 2004 election was the highest it has been since 1968.34 To this extent, the presidential election of 2oo8 was less an exception than a trend, one marked as much by participation as it was by spending: the candidate who spends the most wins.\n\n16\n\nINTRODUCTION","previous_page":15,"next_page":17}