Renata Salecl: “The idea that we can choose as individuals contributes to a certain social passivity”

In an essay that intersects psychoanalysis with literature, Slovenian philosopher, sociologist and legal theorist Renata Salecl disassembles in her book The Tyranny of Choice the neoliberal myth that says that our whole life is a synthesis of personal decisions, a logic that rules from bodies and careers “The idea that as individuals we can choose over all aspects of life contributes to a certain social passivity,” says the author. “Today's capitalist society, with its insistence on the idea of choice, masks a series of inequalities of class, gender and race,” says Salecl, and in the framework of this interview, he warns that the pandemic exposed the extent to which it is difficult for us to tackle social problems and to what extent we overestimate the ability to turn the course of our biographies by mere personal decision.

Salecl was born in 1962 in Slovenia and is a researcher at the Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Ljubljana. In addition, she teaches at Birkbeck College, University of London, she teaches every year at the Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School in New York on psychoanalysis and law, and also teaches courses on neuroscience. His books were translated into fifteen languages and, in Argentina, Ediciones Godot published Angustia in 2018 and The Pleasure of Transgression in 2021. In the various chapters of The Tyranny of Choice (Godot Editions, 2022), the author questions the hegemonic gaze that governs much of the postulates with which the social sciences study social reality in the developed world. According to the theory of rational choice, people always think before they act and in every situation they pursue maximum benefit with the minimum cost. It is this logic that determines that life choices are considered as if they were consumption patterns.

He wrote The Tyranny of Election in 2010. How did the pandemic impact that tyranny?

—The neoliberal ideology that I analyze in my book did not change much in the last ten years. It can be said that it only got worse with the greater power of social media. The pandemic was part of a time when the preponderant ideology considers that an individual is fully responsible for his choices. So, that made us as a society have to deal with individual dilemmas about getting vaccinated or not, wearing masks or not... That made us reflect on social choices: the pandemic is not an individual issue and it cannot be up to everyone to decide how to fight it. However, people internalized the idea that they are fully responsible for their lives, and therefore it is not surprising that there has been such a negative reaction to vaccination in many developed societies. We have been hearing for a long time that our health is a matter of choice and that we can choose what our body looks like. And of course, compulsory vaccination goes against the neoliberal idea of personal choice. And now, since we haven't addressed social choices in the past, today we encounter problems dealing with issues that require people to step out of their most individualistic mindset.

“Why does the imperative of election ultimately make us more anxious people?

—The neoliberal idea of choice makes an individual responsible for his well-being, happiness and success, even if he does not have the means or possibilities to make decisions that promote his well-being. Poor people too often blame themselves for their lack of success. People feel guilty and anxious, inadequate. The idea that we can choose as individuals over all aspects of our lives contributes to a certain social passivity and even apathy, something that we can observe in many societies. And in short, it helps the survival of neoliberal ideology.

— How can we deal with what we can't choose? Is there a lack of theoretical answers to this anxiety?

—Many of our choices are unconscious and strongly influenced by what others choose or what the society around us perceives as the “right” choices. I don't deny that people have a choice; however, we must understand that we make decisions in a much less rational way than we think. We cannot choose to live forever and that is where, somehow, our choices end.

—In the book you quote Felicidad, the novel by Canadian writer Will Ferguson, in which the author from fiction makes a crusade against the genre of self-help. He also takes many ideas from psychoanalysis in his arguments against rational choice. Can these two disciplines — literature and psychoanalysis — help dismantle the discourse that legitimizes capitalism?

—Psychoanalysis is very important to understand how people identify with ideology, how desires and impulses operate in their lives. And, on the other hand, psychoanalysis questions the ideology of happiness, an idea that is present in Ferguson's novel. We know that people often act in a way that not only does not increase their well-being but increase their misery.

—Rational choice also reached the realm of personal relationships with dating apps. What is hidden behind the idea that it is possible to choose in love?

—Unfortunately, algorithms still don't understand that people fall in love irrationally and that often you can't easily list what attracts you to the potential mate. People say one thing and they really want another. Internet dating was helpful in these highly individualized times; however, it also generated many new anxieties: for example, people need to be constantly prepared for rejection and easily get the impression that there is something better around the corner. There has been a new commodification of love relationships, although it is true that this logic of the market had already impacted relationships in the past and that, in some way, it is not new.

Source: Telam S.E.

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