Neoliberal power governs by seduction and anticipation, not by shock or repression

Evidence

In contrast, the neoliberal technology of power does not exercise disciplinary coercion. Electroshock’s mode of operation differs fundamentally from that of neoliberal psychopolitics. Electroshock owes its efficacy to paralyzing and annihilating the contents of the psyche. Its essential trait is negativity. In contrast, neoliberal psychopolitics is dominated by positivity. Instead of working with negative threats, it works with positive stimuli. Instead of administering ‘bitter medicine’, it enlists Liking. It flatters the psyche instead of shaking it and paralyzing it with shocks. Neoliberal psychopolitics seduces the soul; it preempts it in lieu of opposing it. It carefully protocols desires, needs and wishes instead of ‘depatterning’ them. By means of calculated prognoses, it anticipates actions – and acts ahead of them instead of cancelling them out. Neoliberal psychopolitics is SmartPolitics: it seeks to please and fulfil, not to repress. — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 86

Categorization

• XREF: Central thesis distinguishing disciplinary biopolitics from psychopolitics — connects to the book’s earlier chapters and to Han’s broader argument elsewhere (also to Foucault’s repressive hypothesis in Discipline and Punish). — connects to: Neoliberal governance rules the psyche rather than the body — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New…, 53; Neoliberal power works by interiorizing relations that subjects read as freedom; Neoliberalism now governs through soft power and common sense, not force — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 58 (+3 more)
• SEED: The ‘SmartPolitics vs shock politics’ contrast is an essay angle on surveillance/algorithmic moderation as flattery rather than force.

Related

• Electroshock is disciplinary negativity while neoliberal power governs through positivity (similarity 0.88)
• Neoliberal governance rules the psyche rather than the body (similarity 0.83)
• Neoliberal power hides subjugation so completely that subjects believe they are free. (similarity 0.81)
• Neoliberalism is a capitalism of Like rather than of prohibition (similarity 0.80)
• Neoliberalism governs through guilt and debt rather than the body (similarity 0.79)
• Neoliberal domination works by making subjects act on themselves and call it freedom (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal power works by interiorizing relations that subjects read as freedom #corroborates (0.80)
• Neoliberal persuasion works by convincing people they cannot be manipulated #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 392
• Neoliberal domination works by making subjects act on themselves and call it freedom #corroborates (0.80) — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 69
• Neoliberalism now governs through soft power and common sense, not force #corroborates (0.78) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 58
• Imperial domination operates through seduction and consent #corroborates (0.72)