Fear of Breakdown: Politics and Psychoanalysis

by Noëlle McAfee

What is behind the upsurge of virulent nationalism and intransigent politics across the globe today? In Fear of Breakdown, No�lle McAfee uses psychoanalytic theory to explore the subterranean anxieties behind current crises and the ways in which democratic practices can help work through seemingly intractable political conflicts. Working at the intersection of psyche and society, McAfee draws on psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott's concept of the fear of breakdown to show how hypernationalism stems from unconscious anxieties over the origins of personal and social identities, giving rise to temptations to reify exclusionary phantasies of national origins.



Fear of Breakdown contends that politics needs something that only psychoanalysis has been able to an understanding of how to work through anxieties, ambiguity, fragility, and loss in order to create a more democratic politics. Coupling robust psychoanalytic theory with concrete democratic practice, Fear of Breakdown shows how a politics of working through can help counter a politics of splitting, paranoia, and demonization. McAfee argues for a new approach to deliberative democratic theory, not the usual philosopher-sanctioned process of reason-giving but an affective process of making difficult choices, encountering others, and mourning what cannot be had.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, Nonfiction

300 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 4, 2019

About the author

Noëlle McAfee is a professor of philosophy and the director of the Psychoanalytic Studies Program at Emory University. Her books include Habermas, Kristeva, and Citizenship (2000), Julia Kristeva (2003), and Democracy and the Political Unconscious (Columbia, 2008).

Reviews

[Tia · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Vibrantly democratic societies do not wait for their governments to act; they act themselves and then also push official bodies to come along. Often publics lead and governments follow.”

[Isidora Stanković · Rating 1 out of 5]

solid theory, was going for 4.2 rating, up until the point prof McAfee starts rambling about the Serbs and “their ancient enemy the Bosnians”, interjecting as the colonizer trying to explain our own Balkan history for us. There are no ancient Bosnians prof McAfee, just as there is no prince Lazar revival. And if you wanted to theorize object loss as a cause for Balkan wars, you didn’t have to go 600 years in the past - the object loss, unmourned feelings and a repeat of history Serbs were trying to prevent in Bosnia was a 500k Serb exhodus from it, just like it happened earlier in Croatia, via deportation and death camps.

You can see by the superficial and incorrect recounting of historical events (who was Milosevic speaking to? When? All incorrect details in this book) that her knowledge of the topic is extremely narrow, yet she is using this example for a whole chapter of psychoanalytic theory of nationalism. And it’s really hard to believe a theory when it stands on false facts.

This whole chapter makes me theorize - was prof McAfee heartbroken by a Serbian in her past, never mourned a loss and is now demonizing the entire population?

[Jeffrey Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate the post-metaphysical approach taken by McAfee. Borrowing insights from Hannah Arendt, among others, she argues for "thinking without banisters," a nod to the reality that we have no epistemic foundation we agree upon from which to judge political actions or outcomes. Politics, and democracy in particular, is about choosing among ourselves on what we're going to do despite epistemological uncertainty.

Along this line of thinking, deliberation is less about settling on the "right answer" and then cudgeling others with "the truth," and more about acknowledging the freedom we have to imagine and reconstruct our political realities.

For instances that lack a clear explanation in politics, including conflict, war, and disagreement on policy, among other things, psychoanalysis might be a helpful tool for "working through" primitive agonies, past trauma (both collective and individual) that are causing political pathologies in our present.

For example, some of the rising authoritarianism, nativism, and nationalism we see might have some connections to our "fear of breakdown." This refers to catastrophic events that have already happened which we have present anxiety about happening; these events have occurred but we haven't taken to "living through" them presently to overcome our own defense mechanisms that hold us back democratically.

If this sounds a bit esoteric, that's probably a fair reaction. Psychoanalysis reached its zenith in the 1950s and 1960s, and has since been outshined by other psychological traditions. However, McAfee employs the psychoanalytic tradition in ways that are worth considering, even it may be a bit obscure or cryptic as to how exactly it can be applied to political matters.

[Adriana Matos · Rating 3 out of 5]

4,5/5 para a parte de política
3/5 para a parte de psicanálise
1/5 para a tentativa de juntar as coisas

O que dá uma média geral de 3.

Já sou meio reticente em relação ao uso da psicanálise na teoria política. Se é extremamente bem feito pode funcionar, mas precisa de muito trabalho e muitas pontes. Não é o caso aqui. Embora a parte de política seja excelente, as tentativas de diálogo e de trabalho do conceito de "fear of breakdown" pra política soam sempre forçadas e mal trabalhadas.