screw emptied. Psychosocial impact of contemporary capitalism
Marco Solinas
Continuing along the path of criticism of life offense, distorted, alienated or reified, suffering, or even sick, I will try here to sketch the outlines of a critique of that life which seems to be emptied almost like an epidemic in contemporary Western societies [1] . Will proceed in three stages. I will begin with a brief analysis of the paradoxical reversal of the shared model of the good life, in particular concerning the ideals of of personal responsibility and self-inscribed in it, completed under neoliberal hegemony, then the possibility of preparing a immanent critique that seeks to decipher the mechanisms that, in the ideological-normative, are designed to legitimize and justify the new forms of subordination , dependence and exploitation due to the processes set in motion, alongside other factors, the market and flexible forms of work (I). I'll come then to the mass dissemination of better forms of discomfort or suffering experienced by the subjects in question and expressed in terms of inner emptiness, meaninglessness, apathy, anhedonia, fatigue, but also shame and impotent rage, caused by now became established the paradigm of depression. Reactions related to particular forms of psychologizing of social reality that seem to be desperate and radicalized by that paradoxical reversal, and in particular the dynamics of individual responsibility triggered by it (II). The eminently de-politicized approach underlying that personalization, circularly linked to processes of social atomization and re-individualization, it seems to be reflected directly nell'autointerpretazione and self-perception of specific experiences of non-compliance and social exclusion. Experience that without the bridge that allows semantic interpret such injury or deprivation of rights, and then open the way for the formation of social movements are progressive, they seem to lead back, more and more frequently, for annihilating and incapacitating states sick individual. One criticism that seeks to open up the possibility of reactivating the potential legal emancipation here unexpressed and, correspondingly, support the re-diversion of material and emotional instincts frustrated and accordingly facilitate the overcoming of this condition of emptiness and impotence, will eventually emerging as a specific form of a broader and renewed struggle for hegemony (III).
I. Paradoxical reversals
The shared model of the good life of contemporary Western societies includes within itself, between others, two crucial interrelated elements: the ideals of self-realization and personal responsibility, including its sense of a specific form of individual autonomy. During the twentieth century these regulatory bodies have done, on several levels, a function uniquely and eminently progressive and emancipatory, though far from always marked by a certain ambivalence and contradiction. From the seventies until today, the dialectic between their positive role and its opposite is negative radicalized, thus being a trend to employ "paradoxical" in the sense attributed to the process by Axel Honneth and Martin Hartmann [2] : the forms, meaning and purpose to them, have effectively transformed the two instances, in many ways, the pillars of a normative conception of the good life time (paradoxically) to legitimize and justify the devices and mechanisms to effectively limit the scope for self-realization and the preconditions conducive to the recruitment of more personal responsibility.
This process of inversion, although it is certainly due to a variety of reasons relatively heterogeneous, it is also certainly be inscribed within the framework of the dynamics triggered by the victory of economic, political, social, and cultural rules of neoliberalism realizzatasi and consolidated over the past four decades . Of what David Harvey, from the end eighties, described as a flexible regime of accumulation [3] , I would particularly emphasize the crucial role played by the market and more flexible forms of work in the re-legalization of forms of subordination and exploitation, sometimes because never brutal, that long struggles political, social and socio-cultural had banned [4] , and towards which they are addressed synchronously continuing efforts of legitimacy and justification. Aided by the convergence of a series of processes of different nature, so ultimately prevailed those interests to consolidate the new system of flexible accumulation, not only on a highly economic, or merely political, but also in culture and law, where the circular relationship between the three dimensions is perfectly interpreted in terms of conquest and the exercise of a new 'hegemony' by a particular 'historical bloc' in the sense given to the process, and the two concepts from Antonio Gramsci [5] .
On the regulatory side, on which attention will focus here, that the disintegration was also justified by the appeal to that same model of the good life, including the ideal of self-realization, who represented one of the cornerstones of the legal struggle for freedom through which had been built that "social pact between capital and labor" that neo-liberal restructuring is demolished. Model that, especially in the sixties, was also declined in terms of demand for a greater allocation of personal responsibility than the 'sellers' mechanisms of regulation of matrix Fordist-Taylorist [6] . The model is therefore to have been reversed, so as to provide a justification for the exploitation of new devices and new forms of subordination and dependency achieved mainly through greater flexibility. In other words, we would be facing the emergence of a new ideological configuration, a concept which is that, in the classical sense, mask and hidden, through more or less intentionally instrumental use of legal emancipation and progressive principles, those same mechanisms that effectively deny these principles, and that, as such "claim" his "immanent critique," as recently wrote Rahel Jaeggi also in relation to neoliberal ideology contemporary [7] .
You can now ask in what form the two instances special laws were not only disregarded but reversed. Compared to personal fulfillment, particularly in the sense of a form of free and uninterrupted "self discovery" related to a radical ideal of autonomy and independence, a first response refers to the fact that it was more or less explicitly declined in terms of a subjectivity 'open', namely 'flexible': ie that they can seize the fleeting opportunity for a labor market increasingly de-regulated as if they were always or mostly, of missed chances for citizens- workers to help with the continuous path of personal growth and existential, rather than for their use to reduce drastically the cost of labor and the business risk [8] . From this perspective, certainly not exhaustive but nonetheless binding, the ideal of self has become a "model of institutionalized expectations," now essentially 'external' to those needs and desires of those he was born, in which players must nevertheless comply, as if still reflect and convey those same instances has indeed lost [9] . It is, therefore, a legal-ideological model in which citizens-Western workers, certainly not only those belonging to low and medium ranges, subject themselves and are subject to new regulations avowedly anti-self-governing and flexible mechanisms be made more flexible social, cultural and material to which the grip is increasingly difficult to ignore. Compared with the applicant and I would call pervasive ideal of personal responsibility, even in the form of a constant As paradoxical as his denunciation of the alleged weakness, I think it will work in forms and means especially complex. Beyond the focal role played in the deconstruction of the legitimacy of the welfare state, the increasing attribution of personal responsibility to the citizens of Western-workers - which also reflects speculation that is presented in terms of a de-ownership of businesses with regard to their (ex -) employees and more or less outside - I feel have contributed significantly to exasperate and to radicalize those complex processes of psychologizing and personalization of social reality, of course if they have deep roots in Recent decades have seen a stunning acceleration and diffusion [10] and with this we analyze the impact of psychosocial new ideological configuration in relation to the life drained.
II. An epidemic of empty
cut sociological analysis of the epidemic dell'annichilente stronger and paralyzing sense of emptiness that seems to afflict the contemporary Western societies is in my opinion represented by the brilliant work of Alain Ehrenberg The effort to be themselves. Depression and society [11] . The pervasiveness of this sense of inner emptiness, accompanied by moods expressed in terms of meaninglessness, apathy, anhedonia, fatigue, but also feelings and emotions of shame and impotent rage, is developed here directly from the perspective of the analysis of mass distribution of depressive symptoms, and more generally of the statement of the paradigm of depression during the second half realizzatasi of the twentieth century [12] , not only from a strictly clinical, but also on what the mass media and cultural sphere and in relation to highly legislation. In this regard, but indeed one of many critical assumptions of the methodological work of Ehrenberg is that the phenomenon of empty, meaningless and so on. In the outbreak emerging depressive, represent the 'reverse' the "reverse negative 'emancipatory process of dissolution" of the disciplinary models of Fordist and Taylorist management, "and especially and more generally of the" emancipation "," autonomy "," freedom "and" personal responsibility "conquered, or if we established, thanks to the collective movements of struggle and revolt of the sixties [13] . As Ehrenberg explicit from the start: "In virtue of this new normativity, the entire responsibility for our lives not only lies with the individual-that-is-in-us, but involves equally between the collective-we. The present work aims to show how depression represents the exact opposite of all this, manifesting as a disease of responsibility, dominated by a sense of failure: the depressed person does not feel up to, he is tired of having to become himself " [14] .
Now, I believe that the analysis of Ehrenberg, from a descriptive extraordinarily effective, as the premises can and should indeed be taken recontextualized and extended, at least in relation to the dynamics concerning the paradoxical reversal of the contemporary model of the good life discussed above. While it is true that many forms of depressive illness due to the paradigm can be interpreted in relation to the sphere of providing and disclosed attribution of particular forms of personal responsibility, in the sense of negative reactions in the face of what people see as Western challenges of reality against which "do not feel up to," I think it is also true that this process of self-employment and self-attribution of personal responsibility appears inscribed, at least in certain forms and meanings, within that overall process of empowerment coadiuavato or at least triggered by the new ideological configuration. From this perspective, the paradoxical reversal of the shared model of the good life, aimed at legitimizing the precarious living conditions of citizens-Western workers, and more generally their placing new devices and use of discipline that inhibit the possibilities of self-realization, it seems paradoxical to trigger a second dynamic. The moment in which this call results in a pressure to induce the individual to take responsibility, individually, the responsibility for conditions that lead to the preconditions of which he indeed can not be solely responsible, and at the same time justifies (in paradoxically) the mechanisms to deconstruct some of the socio-economic conditions which would strengthen the very possibility of taking a greater burden of personal responsibility [15] , it seems to make a critical contribution to generate a state of impasse nature of depression. In the sense that the subject is now in a situation that is somewhat absurd, indecodificabile, and that from this perspective helps to create or induce self-perception and related forms of self-interpretation in the sphere of conditions and states of mind and experienced expressed in terms of impotent rage, shame, foolishness, fatigue, and more generally empty. A condition whose character "absurd" would then take shape as a result of inner tensions, the contradictions inherent in the paradoxical relationship between the regulatory domain, the configuration and ideological hegemonic forms of life actually achieved in our society.
What I mean by this doubly paradoxical effect inherent in the dynamics of personal responsibility so crystal clear if we take for example the analysis prepared by Richard Sennett of interpretations and emotional reactions aroused in the citizens-Western workers - in the double round top dell'autopercezione canonization and sometimes subjective and social stigma - from the experiences of job loss, in the present cases due to corporate restructuring [16] . In a first paradigmatic form the experience is interpreted by the subjects in question in terms of a personal failure: they blame the staff of some error of assessment, we believe that they were not "equal" than those who play in a certain way from the reality facing them as challenges (social). Reading that induces the emergence of feelings of shame, guilt and inadequacy which might have led to a withdrawal into oneself, in a retreat from social life and so on., Wider array of depression. Reactions also be traced back, from a psychoanalytic perspective, the scope of the "narcissistic depression ' [17] and in this sense can be interpreted as the reverse negative of that burden of responsibility that helps to build (in a paradoxical way) a ideal of self-powerful. Where circular model of the underlying conversion-mania melancholia, and the related dialectic narcissistic omnipotence-impotence, it would be dropped into a broader psychosocial dimension [18] .
In a second form, the same paradigm, which to me seems complementary to the first, the experience is interpreted as an event against which the subject is considered, and is most commonly regarded as socially, as a victim predestined 'object a perverse injustice due to the dynamics of everything outside of his control, and therefore not considered to be responsible in any way. Interpretation that generates feelings and emotions of despair, resentment and impotent rage, also due to the paradigm of depression, and the dynamics of which I seem to fall back into the dialectic of helplessness-omnipotence. Beyond the possible problematizations relating to the forms and contents inscribed within the modern paradigm of depression, I would like to stress that these two reactions, in some ways to the contrary, the degree and quality of the dynamics of psychologizing and personalizing social reality that both, in a similar way, behind and endorse. In the sense that the individual is perceived, and is most commonly considered socially responsible as the sole, or as an intended victim, and not entirely responsible, those that are interpreted as failures (or successes) eminently and exclusively personal, or what the outcome of processes de-politicized.
III. Debasement and hegemonies
This trend of de-politicization becomes clearer if we interpret these experiences in light of the category of contempt or scorn (Missachtung) in the sense given to it by Honneth, both with respect to the plane of law - with particular reference to the right to not only of the work - is that of social esteem [19] . It follows then that since the unilateral perspective psychologized and personalized help to defuse the radical emancipatory potential of such experiences in the very moment when a inhibits translation in terms of injury or deprivation of rights which go beyond the boundaries of individual [20] . Here is that missing the "semantics group" which, writes Honneth, 'enable it to interpret the personal experiences of disappointment as something which not only the individual self, but in fact a circle of many others', in other words, it is absent or is not "sufficiently robust" to the "semantic bridge" that allows "the development of a collective identity" and that, opening the way to the 'political action', 'rips' subjects' from the situation of a crippling devaluation suffered passively, helping, correspondingly, to conduct a new, positive relationship with oneself " [21] . Lacking this interpretation and translation, the experiences of non-compliance and contempt, rather than lead to reactions of emancipatory character, operate in the opposite direction, vilification and shame social dyeing of dark shades depressed, which could be defined in terms of "regressive experiences," to print notes in a broad sense of depression. The absence
but we could also say the collapse of this "semantic bridge" I think in turn due, next to a multiplicity of different contributing factors, the following two sets of factors. First, the mechanisms and dynamics of 'solidarity' on which rests the very possibility of identity construction of collective movements appear to have been mined at the base from the impressive acceleration of the processes of fragmentation and atomization of society, even in relation to what Robert Castel has defined in terms of "de-collectivization" and " re-individualization ' [22] , primed and then consolidated in recent decades by the market and flexible forms of work. The second category concerns the effectiveness of the ideological configuration in which it was overthrown by the joint model of the good life, and his two paradoxical effect discussed above. Two sets of factors that have played a key role in the collapse, or rather in the demolition of the bridge semantic who had contributed to the formation of collective struggle through which was gradually built this social pact, and that the law and work, now being deconstruction in Western societies, and that even this perspective, I think it can be interpreted in view of the economic, political and regulatory inter-circle here, which forms the exercise of hegemony won by a historical bloc antagonistic to the interests and needs of the masses.
If so, the possibility of reactivating the emancipatory potential regulatory unexpressed and reversed in these experiences of non-compliance and contempt, and to foster a corollary the "hijacking" of emotional and instinctual in game, so as to turn in one direction, so to say "depression" and "regressive" to a "constructive" and "progressive," rests on the very possibility of rebuilding the collapsed bridge. Reconstruction, on the analytical level, also refers to the development of an immanent critique of the new ideological configuration capable of revealing the paradoxical effect triggered by the double reversal of the shared model of the good life, and, thus, can therefore help to unlock the via the formation of these movements of collective struggle in which reactivation and hijacking might be realized. Because of the inseparable interrelationship between the ethical-moral, socio-political and socio-economic concerning such a transaction, it is in my view, eventually lead to a renewed struggle for hegemony in the sense of Gramsci where he writes that 'a critical understanding of whether themselves "can overcome the condition 'in which the contradictory nature of conscience does not allow any action, no decision, no choice and produces a state of moral and political liabilities," passes "through a struggle of" hegemony "policies, contrasting directions , first in the field of ethics, then politics " [23] . This, I believe, one of the ways that could lead to outside this condition, the paradoxical and absurd contradictions which contributes to dry, empty of meaning to our lives.
[1] The text is a revised version of my report Kritik des Lebens entleerten held at the conference The Future (s) of Critical Theory at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main on 20.03.2009 and I thank the participants for observations and comments.
[2] M. Hartmann, A. Honneth, Paradoxien des Kapitalismus. Ein Untersuchungsprogramm, "Berliner Debattista Initial ', 15 / 1 (2004), pp. 4-17; A. Honneth, Organisierte Selbstverwirklichung. Paradoxien der Individualisierung, Frankfurt / New York 2002, trad. com. Self-organized. Paradoxes of individualization, in the Post-philosophy ", 1 / 1 (2005), pp. 27-44; see the concept of paradox. also M. Hartmann, Widerspruch, Ambivalenzen, Paradoxien. Begriffliche Wandlungen in der neueren Gesellschaftstheorie, in A. Honneth (ed.), aus der Befreiung Mündigkeit. Paradoxien Gegenwärtigen des Kapitalismus, Campus, Frankfurt / New York 2002, pp. 221-251: 235-241.
[3] See D. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity. An Enquiry Into the Origins of Cultural Change, Oxford 1989, trans. com. The crisis of modernity, Net, Milan 2002, pate II: The politico-economic transformation of capitalism in the second half of the twentieth century.
[4] See p. es. L. Gallino, Labor is not una merce. Contro la flessibilità, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2007, pp. 57 sgg., 75 sgg.
[5] Cfr. p. it. A. Gramsci, Quaderni del carcere, Torino, Einaudi 1975-2007: Q. 10 (XXXIII), 41a, 45-46, 49a-50a, 25a-26, 27a; Q. 11 (XVIII), pp. 13-18 e Q. 8 (XXVIII), pp. 51bis-57, Q. 13 (XXX), pp. 4, 9-15, 26
[6] Cfr. p. it. H. Kocyba, the price of recognition: From Taylorism disregard for the strategic exploitation of the subjectivity of the workers, in U. Holtgrewe, P. Voswinkel, G. Wagner (a cura di), recognition and work UVK, Konstanz 2000, pp. 127-140: 127-133.
[7] Vedi R. Jaeggi, Per una critica dell'ideologia, in "Iris", 55, XXI (2008), pp. 595-616.
[8] See p. es. L. Gallino, Labor is not a commodity, cit., Pp. 27 ff.
[9] See A. Honneth, Self-organized cit., Pp. 32-33.
[10] On the origins of these processes, see p. es. the classic R. Sennett, The Fall of Public Man, Cambridge 1974-1976, trans. com. The decline of public man, Bruno Mondadori, Milano 2006.
[11] A. Ehrenberg, La fatigue d'être soi. Dépression et société, Paris 1998, trans. com. The effort to be themselves. Depression and society, Einaudi, Torino 1999.
[12] See also É. Roudinesco, the Psychanalyse Pourquoi?, Paris 1999, trans. com. Why psychoanalysis?, Editori Riuniti, Rome 2000, Part I: The company depressive.
[13] See A. Ehrenberg, La fatigue to be themselves, cit., Especially pp. 222-223, 254-256, 7-10, 300-301.
[14] Ibid , cit., P. 4 ff.
[15] See M. Hartmann, A. Honneth, Paradoxien des Kapitalismus, cit., Pp. 12-14.
[16] See R. Sennett, The Corrosion of Character. The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism, New York-London 1999, trans. com. The Corrosion of Character. The consequences of the new capitalism on personal life, Feltrinelli, Milano 1999, capitolo 7: Fallimento; e Id, The Culture of New Capitalism, New Haven-London 2006, trad it. La cultura del nuovo capitalismo, il Mulino, Bologna 2006, pp. 79 sgg.
[17] Cfr. p. it. R. Haubl, social psychology of depression, in M. Leuzinger-Bohleber, S. Hau, H. Deserno (a cura di), depression - pluralism in practice and research, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, pp. 291-319: 313-314; Id, Be cool! On the post-modern fear of failure personally, in HJ. Busch (a cura di), traces of the subject. Positions of psychoanalytic social psychology, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2007, pp. 111-133: 117 sgg.
[18] In this sense, one could for example take the considerations of Klein on the relationship between omnipotence and mania in manic-depressive states outlined in M. Klein, A Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-Depressive States, IJP 1935, trans. com. Contribution to Psychogenesis of the manic-depressive, in Id, Writings. 1921-1958, Basic Books, Torino 1978, especially pp. 312-313.
[19] See A. Honneth, Kampf um Anerkennung. Grammatik sozialer Konflikt, Frankfurt / Main 1992, trans. com. Struggle for recognition. Proposals for an ethics conflict, the Hogarth Press, Milan 2002, pp. 160 ff., 190 ff.
[20] Ibid .
[21] See ibid. 191-193.
[22] See R. Castel, The Insecure Social. Qu'est-ce qu'être protégé?, Paris 2003, trans. com. Social insecurity. It means to be protected?, Einaudi, Torino 2004, pp. 40-47.
[23] A. Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, cit., Quaderno 11 (XVIII) p. 16a; tematizzatone on Gramsci's "struggle for hegemony 'see. p. es. therein Q. 10 (XXXIII), pp. 50, 3rd-4, Q. 11 (XVIII), 70bis, Q. 13 (XXX), pp. 4 and Q. 8 (XXVIII), p. 20.
Marco Solinas
Continuing along the path of criticism of life offense, distorted, alienated or reified, suffering, or even sick, I will try here to sketch the outlines of a critique of that life which seems to be emptied almost like an epidemic in contemporary Western societies [1] . Will proceed in three stages. I will begin with a brief analysis of the paradoxical reversal of the shared model of the good life, in particular concerning the ideals of of personal responsibility and self-inscribed in it, completed under neoliberal hegemony, then the possibility of preparing a immanent critique that seeks to decipher the mechanisms that, in the ideological-normative, are designed to legitimize and justify the new forms of subordination , dependence and exploitation due to the processes set in motion, alongside other factors, the market and flexible forms of work (I). I'll come then to the mass dissemination of better forms of discomfort or suffering experienced by the subjects in question and expressed in terms of inner emptiness, meaninglessness, apathy, anhedonia, fatigue, but also shame and impotent rage, caused by now became established the paradigm of depression. Reactions related to particular forms of psychologizing of social reality that seem to be desperate and radicalized by that paradoxical reversal, and in particular the dynamics of individual responsibility triggered by it (II). The eminently de-politicized approach underlying that personalization, circularly linked to processes of social atomization and re-individualization, it seems to be reflected directly nell'autointerpretazione and self-perception of specific experiences of non-compliance and social exclusion. Experience that without the bridge that allows semantic interpret such injury or deprivation of rights, and then open the way for the formation of social movements are progressive, they seem to lead back, more and more frequently, for annihilating and incapacitating states sick individual. One criticism that seeks to open up the possibility of reactivating the potential legal emancipation here unexpressed and, correspondingly, support the re-diversion of material and emotional instincts frustrated and accordingly facilitate the overcoming of this condition of emptiness and impotence, will eventually emerging as a specific form of a broader and renewed struggle for hegemony (III).
I. Paradoxical reversals
The shared model of the good life of contemporary Western societies includes within itself, between others, two crucial interrelated elements: the ideals of self-realization and personal responsibility, including its sense of a specific form of individual autonomy. During the twentieth century these regulatory bodies have done, on several levels, a function uniquely and eminently progressive and emancipatory, though far from always marked by a certain ambivalence and contradiction. From the seventies until today, the dialectic between their positive role and its opposite is negative radicalized, thus being a trend to employ "paradoxical" in the sense attributed to the process by Axel Honneth and Martin Hartmann [2] : the forms, meaning and purpose to them, have effectively transformed the two instances, in many ways, the pillars of a normative conception of the good life time (paradoxically) to legitimize and justify the devices and mechanisms to effectively limit the scope for self-realization and the preconditions conducive to the recruitment of more personal responsibility.
This process of inversion, although it is certainly due to a variety of reasons relatively heterogeneous, it is also certainly be inscribed within the framework of the dynamics triggered by the victory of economic, political, social, and cultural rules of neoliberalism realizzatasi and consolidated over the past four decades . Of what David Harvey, from the end eighties, described as a flexible regime of accumulation [3] , I would particularly emphasize the crucial role played by the market and more flexible forms of work in the re-legalization of forms of subordination and exploitation, sometimes because never brutal, that long struggles political, social and socio-cultural had banned [4] , and towards which they are addressed synchronously continuing efforts of legitimacy and justification. Aided by the convergence of a series of processes of different nature, so ultimately prevailed those interests to consolidate the new system of flexible accumulation, not only on a highly economic, or merely political, but also in culture and law, where the circular relationship between the three dimensions is perfectly interpreted in terms of conquest and the exercise of a new 'hegemony' by a particular 'historical bloc' in the sense given to the process, and the two concepts from Antonio Gramsci [5] .
On the regulatory side, on which attention will focus here, that the disintegration was also justified by the appeal to that same model of the good life, including the ideal of self-realization, who represented one of the cornerstones of the legal struggle for freedom through which had been built that "social pact between capital and labor" that neo-liberal restructuring is demolished. Model that, especially in the sixties, was also declined in terms of demand for a greater allocation of personal responsibility than the 'sellers' mechanisms of regulation of matrix Fordist-Taylorist [6] . The model is therefore to have been reversed, so as to provide a justification for the exploitation of new devices and new forms of subordination and dependency achieved mainly through greater flexibility. In other words, we would be facing the emergence of a new ideological configuration, a concept which is that, in the classical sense, mask and hidden, through more or less intentionally instrumental use of legal emancipation and progressive principles, those same mechanisms that effectively deny these principles, and that, as such "claim" his "immanent critique," as recently wrote Rahel Jaeggi also in relation to neoliberal ideology contemporary [7] .
You can now ask in what form the two instances special laws were not only disregarded but reversed. Compared to personal fulfillment, particularly in the sense of a form of free and uninterrupted "self discovery" related to a radical ideal of autonomy and independence, a first response refers to the fact that it was more or less explicitly declined in terms of a subjectivity 'open', namely 'flexible': ie that they can seize the fleeting opportunity for a labor market increasingly de-regulated as if they were always or mostly, of missed chances for citizens- workers to help with the continuous path of personal growth and existential, rather than for their use to reduce drastically the cost of labor and the business risk [8] . From this perspective, certainly not exhaustive but nonetheless binding, the ideal of self has become a "model of institutionalized expectations," now essentially 'external' to those needs and desires of those he was born, in which players must nevertheless comply, as if still reflect and convey those same instances has indeed lost [9] . It is, therefore, a legal-ideological model in which citizens-Western workers, certainly not only those belonging to low and medium ranges, subject themselves and are subject to new regulations avowedly anti-self-governing and flexible mechanisms be made more flexible social, cultural and material to which the grip is increasingly difficult to ignore. Compared with the applicant and I would call pervasive ideal of personal responsibility, even in the form of a constant As paradoxical as his denunciation of the alleged weakness, I think it will work in forms and means especially complex. Beyond the focal role played in the deconstruction of the legitimacy of the welfare state, the increasing attribution of personal responsibility to the citizens of Western-workers - which also reflects speculation that is presented in terms of a de-ownership of businesses with regard to their (ex -) employees and more or less outside - I feel have contributed significantly to exasperate and to radicalize those complex processes of psychologizing and personalization of social reality, of course if they have deep roots in Recent decades have seen a stunning acceleration and diffusion [10] and with this we analyze the impact of psychosocial new ideological configuration in relation to the life drained.
II. An epidemic of empty
cut sociological analysis of the epidemic dell'annichilente stronger and paralyzing sense of emptiness that seems to afflict the contemporary Western societies is in my opinion represented by the brilliant work of Alain Ehrenberg The effort to be themselves. Depression and society [11] . The pervasiveness of this sense of inner emptiness, accompanied by moods expressed in terms of meaninglessness, apathy, anhedonia, fatigue, but also feelings and emotions of shame and impotent rage, is developed here directly from the perspective of the analysis of mass distribution of depressive symptoms, and more generally of the statement of the paradigm of depression during the second half realizzatasi of the twentieth century [12] , not only from a strictly clinical, but also on what the mass media and cultural sphere and in relation to highly legislation. In this regard, but indeed one of many critical assumptions of the methodological work of Ehrenberg is that the phenomenon of empty, meaningless and so on. In the outbreak emerging depressive, represent the 'reverse' the "reverse negative 'emancipatory process of dissolution" of the disciplinary models of Fordist and Taylorist management, "and especially and more generally of the" emancipation "," autonomy "," freedom "and" personal responsibility "conquered, or if we established, thanks to the collective movements of struggle and revolt of the sixties [13] . As Ehrenberg explicit from the start: "In virtue of this new normativity, the entire responsibility for our lives not only lies with the individual-that-is-in-us, but involves equally between the collective-we. The present work aims to show how depression represents the exact opposite of all this, manifesting as a disease of responsibility, dominated by a sense of failure: the depressed person does not feel up to, he is tired of having to become himself " [14] .
Now, I believe that the analysis of Ehrenberg, from a descriptive extraordinarily effective, as the premises can and should indeed be taken recontextualized and extended, at least in relation to the dynamics concerning the paradoxical reversal of the contemporary model of the good life discussed above. While it is true that many forms of depressive illness due to the paradigm can be interpreted in relation to the sphere of providing and disclosed attribution of particular forms of personal responsibility, in the sense of negative reactions in the face of what people see as Western challenges of reality against which "do not feel up to," I think it is also true that this process of self-employment and self-attribution of personal responsibility appears inscribed, at least in certain forms and meanings, within that overall process of empowerment coadiuavato or at least triggered by the new ideological configuration. From this perspective, the paradoxical reversal of the shared model of the good life, aimed at legitimizing the precarious living conditions of citizens-Western workers, and more generally their placing new devices and use of discipline that inhibit the possibilities of self-realization, it seems paradoxical to trigger a second dynamic. The moment in which this call results in a pressure to induce the individual to take responsibility, individually, the responsibility for conditions that lead to the preconditions of which he indeed can not be solely responsible, and at the same time justifies (in paradoxically) the mechanisms to deconstruct some of the socio-economic conditions which would strengthen the very possibility of taking a greater burden of personal responsibility [15] , it seems to make a critical contribution to generate a state of impasse nature of depression. In the sense that the subject is now in a situation that is somewhat absurd, indecodificabile, and that from this perspective helps to create or induce self-perception and related forms of self-interpretation in the sphere of conditions and states of mind and experienced expressed in terms of impotent rage, shame, foolishness, fatigue, and more generally empty. A condition whose character "absurd" would then take shape as a result of inner tensions, the contradictions inherent in the paradoxical relationship between the regulatory domain, the configuration and ideological hegemonic forms of life actually achieved in our society.
What I mean by this doubly paradoxical effect inherent in the dynamics of personal responsibility so crystal clear if we take for example the analysis prepared by Richard Sennett of interpretations and emotional reactions aroused in the citizens-Western workers - in the double round top dell'autopercezione canonization and sometimes subjective and social stigma - from the experiences of job loss, in the present cases due to corporate restructuring [16] . In a first paradigmatic form the experience is interpreted by the subjects in question in terms of a personal failure: they blame the staff of some error of assessment, we believe that they were not "equal" than those who play in a certain way from the reality facing them as challenges (social). Reading that induces the emergence of feelings of shame, guilt and inadequacy which might have led to a withdrawal into oneself, in a retreat from social life and so on., Wider array of depression. Reactions also be traced back, from a psychoanalytic perspective, the scope of the "narcissistic depression ' [17] and in this sense can be interpreted as the reverse negative of that burden of responsibility that helps to build (in a paradoxical way) a ideal of self-powerful. Where circular model of the underlying conversion-mania melancholia, and the related dialectic narcissistic omnipotence-impotence, it would be dropped into a broader psychosocial dimension [18] .
In a second form, the same paradigm, which to me seems complementary to the first, the experience is interpreted as an event against which the subject is considered, and is most commonly regarded as socially, as a victim predestined 'object a perverse injustice due to the dynamics of everything outside of his control, and therefore not considered to be responsible in any way. Interpretation that generates feelings and emotions of despair, resentment and impotent rage, also due to the paradigm of depression, and the dynamics of which I seem to fall back into the dialectic of helplessness-omnipotence. Beyond the possible problematizations relating to the forms and contents inscribed within the modern paradigm of depression, I would like to stress that these two reactions, in some ways to the contrary, the degree and quality of the dynamics of psychologizing and personalizing social reality that both, in a similar way, behind and endorse. In the sense that the individual is perceived, and is most commonly considered socially responsible as the sole, or as an intended victim, and not entirely responsible, those that are interpreted as failures (or successes) eminently and exclusively personal, or what the outcome of processes de-politicized.
III. Debasement and hegemonies
This trend of de-politicization becomes clearer if we interpret these experiences in light of the category of contempt or scorn (Missachtung) in the sense given to it by Honneth, both with respect to the plane of law - with particular reference to the right to not only of the work - is that of social esteem [19] . It follows then that since the unilateral perspective psychologized and personalized help to defuse the radical emancipatory potential of such experiences in the very moment when a inhibits translation in terms of injury or deprivation of rights which go beyond the boundaries of individual [20] . Here is that missing the "semantics group" which, writes Honneth, 'enable it to interpret the personal experiences of disappointment as something which not only the individual self, but in fact a circle of many others', in other words, it is absent or is not "sufficiently robust" to the "semantic bridge" that allows "the development of a collective identity" and that, opening the way to the 'political action', 'rips' subjects' from the situation of a crippling devaluation suffered passively, helping, correspondingly, to conduct a new, positive relationship with oneself " [21] . Lacking this interpretation and translation, the experiences of non-compliance and contempt, rather than lead to reactions of emancipatory character, operate in the opposite direction, vilification and shame social dyeing of dark shades depressed, which could be defined in terms of "regressive experiences," to print notes in a broad sense of depression. The absence
but we could also say the collapse of this "semantic bridge" I think in turn due, next to a multiplicity of different contributing factors, the following two sets of factors. First, the mechanisms and dynamics of 'solidarity' on which rests the very possibility of identity construction of collective movements appear to have been mined at the base from the impressive acceleration of the processes of fragmentation and atomization of society, even in relation to what Robert Castel has defined in terms of "de-collectivization" and " re-individualization ' [22] , primed and then consolidated in recent decades by the market and flexible forms of work. The second category concerns the effectiveness of the ideological configuration in which it was overthrown by the joint model of the good life, and his two paradoxical effect discussed above. Two sets of factors that have played a key role in the collapse, or rather in the demolition of the bridge semantic who had contributed to the formation of collective struggle through which was gradually built this social pact, and that the law and work, now being deconstruction in Western societies, and that even this perspective, I think it can be interpreted in view of the economic, political and regulatory inter-circle here, which forms the exercise of hegemony won by a historical bloc antagonistic to the interests and needs of the masses.
If so, the possibility of reactivating the emancipatory potential regulatory unexpressed and reversed in these experiences of non-compliance and contempt, and to foster a corollary the "hijacking" of emotional and instinctual in game, so as to turn in one direction, so to say "depression" and "regressive" to a "constructive" and "progressive," rests on the very possibility of rebuilding the collapsed bridge. Reconstruction, on the analytical level, also refers to the development of an immanent critique of the new ideological configuration capable of revealing the paradoxical effect triggered by the double reversal of the shared model of the good life, and, thus, can therefore help to unlock the via the formation of these movements of collective struggle in which reactivation and hijacking might be realized. Because of the inseparable interrelationship between the ethical-moral, socio-political and socio-economic concerning such a transaction, it is in my view, eventually lead to a renewed struggle for hegemony in the sense of Gramsci where he writes that 'a critical understanding of whether themselves "can overcome the condition 'in which the contradictory nature of conscience does not allow any action, no decision, no choice and produces a state of moral and political liabilities," passes "through a struggle of" hegemony "policies, contrasting directions , first in the field of ethics, then politics " [23] . This, I believe, one of the ways that could lead to outside this condition, the paradoxical and absurd contradictions which contributes to dry, empty of meaning to our lives.
[1] The text is a revised version of my report Kritik des Lebens entleerten held at the conference The Future (s) of Critical Theory at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main on 20.03.2009 and I thank the participants for observations and comments.
[2] M. Hartmann, A. Honneth, Paradoxien des Kapitalismus. Ein Untersuchungsprogramm, "Berliner Debattista Initial ', 15 / 1 (2004), pp. 4-17; A. Honneth, Organisierte Selbstverwirklichung. Paradoxien der Individualisierung, Frankfurt / New York 2002, trad. com. Self-organized. Paradoxes of individualization, in the Post-philosophy ", 1 / 1 (2005), pp. 27-44; see the concept of paradox. also M. Hartmann, Widerspruch, Ambivalenzen, Paradoxien. Begriffliche Wandlungen in der neueren Gesellschaftstheorie, in A. Honneth (ed.), aus der Befreiung Mündigkeit. Paradoxien Gegenwärtigen des Kapitalismus, Campus, Frankfurt / New York 2002, pp. 221-251: 235-241.
[3] See D. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity. An Enquiry Into the Origins of Cultural Change, Oxford 1989, trans. com. The crisis of modernity, Net, Milan 2002, pate II: The politico-economic transformation of capitalism in the second half of the twentieth century.
[4] See p. es. L. Gallino, Labor is not una merce. Contro la flessibilità, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2007, pp. 57 sgg., 75 sgg.
[5] Cfr. p. it. A. Gramsci, Quaderni del carcere, Torino, Einaudi 1975-2007: Q. 10 (XXXIII), 41a, 45-46, 49a-50a, 25a-26, 27a; Q. 11 (XVIII), pp. 13-18 e Q. 8 (XXVIII), pp. 51bis-57, Q. 13 (XXX), pp. 4, 9-15, 26
[6] Cfr. p. it. H. Kocyba, the price of recognition: From Taylorism disregard for the strategic exploitation of the subjectivity of the workers, in U. Holtgrewe, P. Voswinkel, G. Wagner (a cura di), recognition and work UVK, Konstanz 2000, pp. 127-140: 127-133.
[7] Vedi R. Jaeggi, Per una critica dell'ideologia, in "Iris", 55, XXI (2008), pp. 595-616.
[8] See p. es. L. Gallino, Labor is not a commodity, cit., Pp. 27 ff.
[9] See A. Honneth, Self-organized cit., Pp. 32-33.
[10] On the origins of these processes, see p. es. the classic R. Sennett, The Fall of Public Man, Cambridge 1974-1976, trans. com. The decline of public man, Bruno Mondadori, Milano 2006.
[11] A. Ehrenberg, La fatigue d'être soi. Dépression et société, Paris 1998, trans. com. The effort to be themselves. Depression and society, Einaudi, Torino 1999.
[12] See also É. Roudinesco, the Psychanalyse Pourquoi?, Paris 1999, trans. com. Why psychoanalysis?, Editori Riuniti, Rome 2000, Part I: The company depressive.
[13] See A. Ehrenberg, La fatigue to be themselves, cit., Especially pp. 222-223, 254-256, 7-10, 300-301.
[14] Ibid , cit., P. 4 ff.
[15] See M. Hartmann, A. Honneth, Paradoxien des Kapitalismus, cit., Pp. 12-14.
[16] See R. Sennett, The Corrosion of Character. The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism, New York-London 1999, trans. com. The Corrosion of Character. The consequences of the new capitalism on personal life, Feltrinelli, Milano 1999, capitolo 7: Fallimento; e Id, The Culture of New Capitalism, New Haven-London 2006, trad it. La cultura del nuovo capitalismo, il Mulino, Bologna 2006, pp. 79 sgg.
[17] Cfr. p. it. R. Haubl, social psychology of depression, in M. Leuzinger-Bohleber, S. Hau, H. Deserno (a cura di), depression - pluralism in practice and research, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, pp. 291-319: 313-314; Id, Be cool! On the post-modern fear of failure personally, in HJ. Busch (a cura di), traces of the subject. Positions of psychoanalytic social psychology, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2007, pp. 111-133: 117 sgg.
[18] In this sense, one could for example take the considerations of Klein on the relationship between omnipotence and mania in manic-depressive states outlined in M. Klein, A Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-Depressive States, IJP 1935, trans. com. Contribution to Psychogenesis of the manic-depressive, in Id, Writings. 1921-1958, Basic Books, Torino 1978, especially pp. 312-313.
[19] See A. Honneth, Kampf um Anerkennung. Grammatik sozialer Konflikt, Frankfurt / Main 1992, trans. com. Struggle for recognition. Proposals for an ethics conflict, the Hogarth Press, Milan 2002, pp. 160 ff., 190 ff.
[20] Ibid .
[21] See ibid. 191-193.
[22] See R. Castel, The Insecure Social. Qu'est-ce qu'être protégé?, Paris 2003, trans. com. Social insecurity. It means to be protected?, Einaudi, Torino 2004, pp. 40-47.
[23] A. Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, cit., Quaderno 11 (XVIII) p. 16a; tematizzatone on Gramsci's "struggle for hegemony 'see. p. es. therein Q. 10 (XXXIII), pp. 50, 3rd-4, Q. 11 (XVIII), 70bis, Q. 13 (XXX), pp. 4 and Q. 8 (XXVIII), p. 20.
