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I don't buy the distinction between the discipline-subject and the achievement-subject. Our society runs very heavily on the threat of discipline, it's just nat

I don't buy the distinction between the discipline-subject and the achievement-subject. Our society runs very heavily on the threat of discipline, it's just naturalized and made invisible by a bunch of intervening social structures. And it's more invisible to some people than to others; if you're working a low-wage service job, you know that you're always at risk of being made homeless, lacking reliable access to food, shelter, and medical care, and subject to being brutalized by security forces. Even people who think they're driven by achievement may well just have internalized the threats to where they can't see them as external anymore. I know nobody actually reads Foucault, but doesn't anyone at least read the Cliff's Notes?

bsedlm 5y ago
> Nor are we free of conflict. The traumas of the achievement-subject are not those of the Freudian age, where we repressed our desires out of a sense of social duty, compulsively washed our hands, and dreamt about our mothers. No, the manias of our age are depression, exhaustion, and burnout. and then near the end of the article: > I’m not really sure external coercion has gone away, so much as it has been made indirect.
thewarrior 5y ago
The way I synthesize it myself is that at the lower levels of society the burn out is because of harsh discipline and poverty. However people at the upper echelons of society who you would expect to be all happy and cheerful are also burning out because of what’s described in the book.