Mandated self-expression makes affective demands on Control-society workers

Evidence

Judge shows this same managerialism presides in the corporate coffee chains where the office workers go to relax. Here, staff are required to decorate their uniforms with ‘seven pieces of flair’, (i.e. badges or other personal tokens) to express their ‘individuality and creativity’: a handy illustration of the way in which ‘creativity’ and ‘self-expression’ have become intrinsic to labor in Control societies; which, as Paolo Virno, Yann Moulier Boutang and others have pointed out, now makes affective, as well as productive demands, on workers. Furthermore, the attempt to crudely quantify these affective contributions also tells us a great deal about the new arrangements. The flair example also points to another phenomenon: hidden expectations behind official standards. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 84

Categorization

• DEFINE: The “hidden expectations behind official standards” idea is a crisp definitional/conceptual distinction worth keeping.
• XREF: connects to: Disciplinary society suppresses emotion while achievement society exploits it — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New…, 107; Workplace control shifted from obedience to demands for self-directed flexibility. — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 166; Behavioral engineered self-control masks society’s ultimate control over individuals — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1386 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Affect binds individuals to the power that subjects them. #expands (0.88) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 1153
• Behavioral engineered self-control masks society’s ultimate control over individuals #corroborates (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1386
• Workplace control shifted from obedience to demands for self-directed flexibility. #expands (0.82) — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 166
• Public selves require constant self-monitoring and self-editing labor #expands (0.80) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 633
• Compulsory self-expression serves repressive power, and silence is its antidote #responds-to (0.80)
• Emotional labor requires inducing or suppressing feeling for others’ sake #expands (0.78) — Brooke Erin Duffy, (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love, 70
• Workplace friendliness programs extend social control into private impulses #exemplifies (0.78) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 115
• Socially prescribed conduct can serve as scaffolding for self-realization rather than constraint #complicates (0.75) — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 1027