Abstract

The first part of the book looks at the social and historical relations that have constituted subjectivity over time leading into neoliberalism as a social context in which I develop a critique of the neoliberal self. The neoliberal values of individualization, responsibilization, self-governance, and competition, rather than being sources of meaning, alienate us from our possibilities for creating meaning and have exacerbated the meaning and mental health crises. Sections on self-help, as a growing global industry, illustrate the transnational export of a neoliberal moral grammar as a critique of neoliberalism rather than a specific critique of the self-help industry, though some of these critiques are elaborated. Much of the first part of the book is expository with critiques of neoliberalism that serve as a premise for the rest of the book. The exposition is layered over a theoretical groundwork on the development of subjectivity that becomes central to the rest of the book in relating the neoliberal self to meaninglessness and then critical alternatives.