The neuroscience of plasticity has not made people freer or happier

Evidence

We must acknowledge an enormous discrepancy between the descriptive and the prescriptive scope of neuroscientific discourses. We must acknowledge an enormous discrepancy between, on the one hand, all the promises for the future and desires for another history and another life, desires aroused by this wholly new vision of the brain, by this continent known as cerebral plasticity, and, on the other hand, the tiny political, philosophical, and cultural space in which these promises can at once be theoretically deployed and realized. Once again, it seems that the neuronal revolution has revolutionized nothing for us, if it is true that our new brains serve only to displace ourselves better, work better, feel better, or obey better. The synthesis of the neuronal and the psychical thus fails to live up to its task: we are neither freer, nor smarter, nor happier. — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 223

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s goal of spotting ‘docility rebranded as adaptability’ in management/wellness discourse — this is Malabou observing that plasticity’s promises reduce to better obedience.