In, book released by Boitempo publisher last year, psychoanalyst Douglas Barros focuses on one of the most foggy, disputed and debated by the political and civil society.
Barros defends an original thesis: O is not a choice, but an imposition of the neoliberal state.
Drawing for minorities excluded from post-Fordist capitalism, he said, would be intended to manage these identities and prevent the boiling of social conflicts that could threaten their own system.
The solidification of, however, makes room for the conflict to enter another door. This is what we see, argues the psychoanalyst, with the rise of leaders such as, and Viktor Orbán, who exploit the resentment of those who believe that minority groups are “piercing the line” by accessing more rights.
For Barros, the far right contemporary, although, is ultra -identity itself.
“Universal values proclaimed by the far right are universal for a small group. The white, patriarchal, heteronormative group,” he says in an interview with Sheet. “The other, in their view, will be the identity. The other is always this ghost in which the obnoxious reflection is placed on what one is.”
On the left there are those who say that Identitarianism does not exist – which is just a scarecrow built by the far right. Does it exist after all?
There is, right? So much so that one speaks of him. My thesis is that it does not exist as a choice, but as an impersonal form of management of social conflicts. But here comes something complicated: this form organizes identities that appear as solid, closed and very defined. Identity is marked by exclusion.
When you create a management based on identity organization, you create conditions for these identities to access rights over others.
In an attempt to avoid social conflict, he enters another door – in the face of access to rights. This is what we see in the speech of the far right. As if people excluded from the process of modernization, basic income, wealth, they are now piercing the line.
Mr. argues that neoliberalism has produced the 21st century identaryism. How?
Especially for a change in the world of work. You leave a rigid structure, with fixed times and organized by labor laws. Neoliberalism goes through another premise, which is flexibility, competition and the search for satisfaction.
This result in a substitution of the space of solidarity. The fact that you worked a lifetime in one place also generated solidarity between your peers. Will have other impacts. One of them is a relationship of mobility and competitiveness based on the idea of meritocracy.
But you need to have a reckoning with the historical dimension. It was very visible, with the rupture of the Fordist work world, which excluded groups were at a competitive disadvantage.
This transformation of the way of managing consolidated ways to ensure the competitiveness of these groups. In addition to being potential consumers, they are also sources of political and social conflicts. The attempt is always to settle any possibility of conflict. Hence the need to create categories settled to organize these groups in the market.
But how did these fixed identities were created?
The internet played a revolutionary role. It has something of group formation and radically new belonging.
In a way, there was something stable in a capitalist society that is no longer. It had a class belonging that made these identities cloudy. Many times you did not question what your position in society.
What we watch is a change in our relationship of seeing the world ,. Everyone wants an identity. It is very curious how even a medical report becomes an identity today. Perhaps it was what was left.
Even those who think out of an identity are claiming as straight, patriarchs, who must defend Christian values.
At the same time, by stating my identity, I counter yours. Its denies mine, therefore, we avoid talking, arguing. There is something also of a narcissism that operates a war of all against all.
Is the radical right of Bolsonaro, Trump or Orbán also identity?
Undoubtedly. As they evoke the idea of universality, they say, “But this universality is for us whites.” From Trump was ultraidentitarian, which is from the territory. No wonder you see flags on the white side of the civil war. They are immersed in this ultra -identity logic, a protascist logic.
Orbán asks for a consolidation of borders. The different has to stay outside. It wasn’t – it was a nod for the far right identity bases. These universal values proclaimed by them are universal for a small group. The white, patriarchal, heteronormative group.
Did political parties also embrace this logic? Candidates became a product on the shelf?
If you want the power space within this system, you will pray according to the booklet. The parties will have to surrender in a certain way. That’s exactly that, a product on the shelf. On the other hand, this does not mean that they need to surrender [totalmente].
Who imposes politics today is the extreme right. They impose conflict, force the limits of institutionality.
The left surrendered to this institutionality. Perhaps a way out is as it is put. Rethink your legitimacy again. This seems to disappear from the left horizon, but it would be important to resume the field of politics.
Is there a bubble out of the bubble?
On the horizon being realistic is not seeing exits. What is the answer to? It seems to me to be the wars.
But the story is much more dynamic than the ways we have to evaluate and interpret it. Perhaps a good answer is to understand politics again as a conflict. Not what the far right imposes: a conflict of dispute of ideas and worldview.
The idea of the idea of the immense hope, because it is also a demystification of the neoliberal worldview, lit me. People are dying at work. To say that life does not have to be just that may be one of the ways to replace our field on the horizon of politics, the social horizon and the horizon of the ordinary people. It is these people who matter. Although they say that my book is very difficult and that they will not read [ri].
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Douglas Barros, 38
Psychoanalyst and PhD in Philosophy from Unifesp (Federal University of São Paulo). Author of “What is Identitarianism?” (2024), “Guy Debord: Reading Antimanual” (2022) and “Place of Black, Place of White?” (2019).
