Spinoza offers a progressive alternative to both therapeutic and rationalist emotion models

Evidence

As is well known, far from ignoring emotions, or assuming they could be bypassed in some way, Spinoza’s philosophy makes the management of emotions central to its project. It aims not to subdue emotions, but to engineer joy — a task that can only be achieved when reason is not simply opposed to feelings, but brought to bear on them. According to Spinoza’s logic, ignoring emotions only mystifies them, putting them beyond the purview of rational enquiry. All of which makes Spinoza an eminently modern philosopher, but also a thinker whose work is an indispensable resource for any progressive project. This is especially so now, in an era in which more and more areas of life and the psyche dominated by agencies which engage in libidinal and emotional engineering — most of which is undertaken, knowingly or unknowingly, in the interests of capital. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1927

Categorization

• DEFINE: Positions a form of emotional politics — reason brought to bear on feelings to engineer joy — that escapes both the therapeutic imaginary’s privatisation and Dawkins-style rationalism.
• QUESTION: Fisher claims Spinoza as the resource for a progressive emotion politics; worth chasing how this plays against his recurring Marxist frame.
• XREF: connects to: Spinoza frames addiction as humanity’s standard state, not an aberration — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 149