Mood drugs confer flexibility while bypassing the psychic cost of earning it

Evidence

Hence to heal means to reintegrate, to restore flexibility. When it first appeared, Prozac was presented as a ”mood raiser” and an ”action facilitator.” In his book Listening to Prozac, Peter Kramer develops a critical reflection on the type of ”self” that ”today’s high-tech capitalism” endorses as its condition of possibility: ”Confidence, flexibility, quickness, and energy … are at a premium.” Prozac allows one to obtain these goods at a low cost, not only because this medication is not expensive, but also because it allows one to avoid the psychical cost of acquiring these values. — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 174

Categorization

• XREF: Feeds the reader’s plasticity-vs-flexibility distinction: flexibility here is pure receptivity/adaptation to network demands — exactly the ‘docility rebranded as adaptability’ that flexibility becomes. Prozac as shortcut to flexibility without plasticity.
• SEED: Strong material for a memo glosssing ‘flexibility’ as the workplace’s bought-with-pills docility.