Self-Realization and Disappointment in the ‘Society of Singularities’
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Austin Harrington
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.
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© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Editorial
- Focus: Ukraine and Political Realism
- Mearsheimer, Realism, and the Ukraine War
- Realism, the War in the Ukraine, and the Limits of Diplomacy
- The End of Open Society Realism?
- Realism after Ukraine: A Critique of Geopolitical Reason from Monroe to Mearsheimer
- Discussion: Andreas Reckwitz and the Society of Singularities
- The Society of Singularities—10 Theses
- Does Practice Theory Work? Reckwitz’s Study of the ‘New Middle Class’ as an Example
- Self-Realization and Disappointment in the ‘Society of Singularities’
- The Theory of Everything: A Sympathetic Critique of Andeas Reckwitz’s The Society of Singularities
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Editorial
- Focus: Ukraine and Political Realism
- Mearsheimer, Realism, and the Ukraine War
- Realism, the War in the Ukraine, and the Limits of Diplomacy
- The End of Open Society Realism?
- Realism after Ukraine: A Critique of Geopolitical Reason from Monroe to Mearsheimer
- Discussion: Andreas Reckwitz and the Society of Singularities
- The Society of Singularities—10 Theses
- Does Practice Theory Work? Reckwitz’s Study of the ‘New Middle Class’ as an Example
- Self-Realization and Disappointment in the ‘Society of Singularities’
- The Theory of Everything: A Sympathetic Critique of Andeas Reckwitz’s The Society of Singularities
