Neoliberalism’s internal contradictions are displaced onto cultural theaters of cruelty

Evidence

But beyond a little virtual reality, the normalization of everyday sadism fulfills deeper functions as well. The “double truths” of neoliberalism outlined in the last chapter cannot be permanently confined within the ambit of the NTC, but tend to leak out as barely repressed contradictions in quotidian life—between populism and plutarchy, between freedom and control, between smug ignorance and fervent conviction, between Christian theology and norms of efficiency, between kosmos and taxis, between the enjoyment of pleasure and the deployment of pain. These contradictions could not be confronted directly by the larger populace without fomenting utter disenchantment with the promises of neoliberal order. To get around the cognitive dissonance, cultural outlets square the circle by staging little neoliberal allegories in the public sphere, directing anger away from intractable predicaments in the political sphere and toward the victims. As one analyst put it, every system of cruelty requires its own theater. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 366

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Neoliberal intellectuals framed the wartime era as a moral and spiritual crisis requiring diagnosis — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 204; Neoliberalism’s durability rests on fusing the economic with the cultural — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 298; Neoliberalism’s self-cultivation culture has a dark twin in public spectacles of humiliation — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 372 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalism holds together several unresolved internal contradictions by asserting both sides at once #corroborates (0.90) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2142
• Neoliberalism operates through systematic contradiction and disavowal of its own practices #corroborates (0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 81
• Neoliberalism’s self-cultivation culture has a dark twin in public spectacles of humiliation #corroborates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 372
• Treating culture and economics as separate spheres misreads how neoliberalism operates #expands (0.75) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 298
• Neoliberals pathologised political struggle by framing the market as peaceful and politics as violent #complicates (0.75) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 64
• Neoliberalism reshapes cultural incentives by prioritizing extreme profit seeking #expands (0.72)
• Art works expose social contradictions through their internal formal tensions #corroborates (0.70) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 19