Part 1: FW- Neoliberalism- Transformation: Neoliberalism refers to the material change in relations of Fordist capitalism to post-Fordist capitalism after world war 2. It specifically articulates the way in which sites of capital accumulation have transitioned from states to increased privatization and the subsequent privatization of all forms of life. This transforms anything into a potential market for capital accumulation, and subjectivity gets reconstructed as instead of being sublimated to work as work itself. For example, look to the way in which NAFTA led to a globalization and proliferation of privatized modes of capital generation outside of the parameters of its member states. - Immateriality: Due to this fact, it means that capitalism is less concerned with the accumulation of material goods as a generator of capital but rather the possibility of market creation. This is due to the fact neoliberalism does not sustain itself by its control over material goods, but rather through perpetual investment within its logics as that which is necessary for life to plug into. Markets are the primary mechanism for which this occurs because it allows for all life to be indexed and made to be understood merely in a neoliberal way. This means that under neoliberalism the primary site of capital accumulation has shifted to the realm of the virtual. - Freedom: One of the primary mechanisms by which neoliberalism is able to force the creation of this productive energy is through the creation of an image of freedom. Freedom understood as not the liberation of life from dispossession, but rather as the mere existence of choices. These choices become sutured to the market and thus freedom becomes understood as the ability for subjects to plug within market forces. This not only allows for neoliberalism to get the investment that it requires but creates a de-facto protection of its systems as the bastion of life’s ‘bastion.’ - Psychopolitics come first: Psychopolitics refers to the political formations and conceptions of our psychological environments. - Sublimation: Under neoliberalism, the entirety of the psychological becomes buried under the pressure to perform as the productive subject. This means that the only way in which both the psychological, and the which it interfaces with, can under itself through being corrletory to the systems of neoliberalism. For example, the way in which all relationships are only framed in terms of their ability to be productive towards your future. Ontology, epistemology, and subjectivity assume that there is an agent in the first place, but under this process it is only the neoliberal process which means it will always poison any such development with neoliberalism. - Self-Regulation: Cross apply fw point 1C, under neoliberalism life becomes projected with the image of its central expression, freedom, as being about the expression of productivity and engagement with the market. This means that the body becomes repressed under the impetus to constantly perform as such, which means that the path for which the body will embark upon is one that is always already neoliberal. This is always a prior question to macro politics, because these sorts of projects rely on the assumption that actors are enacting them in the first place. This means regardless of the content of the political program of the 1AC, the subjects enacting it will always produce it in a way that re-justifies neoliberalism. - **ROB: Vote for the team that best deconstructs neoliberal psychopolitics #### Part 2: Links- The PMC forwards individual freedom - The PMC forwards a politics of positivity- The PMC forwards a politics of transparency- The PMC forwards the entrepreneurial subject - The PMC forwards passive subjectification #### Part 3: Impacts- Burnout- Pressure: Burnout refers to the overwhelming pressure to be told, and your psychic reality circuited, with the impetus to be the neoliberal subject but being situated within particular material realities in which this mandate is impossible. Being forced with a reality in which you are unable to fulfill the mandate that your psychology as been put under causes a deep depression at failing to both be able to survive within the world and achieve what life has come to be understood as. This is due to the fact that neoliberalism is always oriented around the exploitation of marginalized bodies, so this will always create this double edged sword. - o/w on timeframe: Because of the specific dialectical position of burnout, in that one is constantly exhausted but told that the only way to resolve is to constantly reinvest within the markets of neoliberalism. This means that the perpetual reinvestment into the systems that keep causing this process of burnout is everlasting and never stops. For example, look to the way in which debaters like Jess are forced to continue to debate even through painful mental health realities under the mandate of being a ‘good debater.’- o/w magnitude: The creation of burnout causes those subjects who are experience burnout to be framed as failed subjects, and thus worthy nothing but disposability or being made into an object for education. This reduces those that are framed as such to become disposable, for example look to the way in which we frame homeless folks as ‘wise sages’ or teachable moments instead of as agents whose material conditions need to be liberated. - o/w on reversibility: Burnout kills the potential of the creation of authentic subjectivity due to the fact that it frames the self as a static individual that has done nothing but failed their purpose. This means that the self can never generate itself, but rather is perpetually killed in favor of being the productive subject. For example, look to the way in which we never value the labor that black women provide as providing burnout but rather frame it as a necessary burden that they must engage in to provide ‘good’ or ‘educational’ discourse. #### Alt: Vote negative to reject the neoliberal psychopolitics of the PMC and endorse a method of ExhaustionThesis: **As opposed to burnout, exhaustion refers to the process of taking time to realize the tiredness that neoliberal psychopolitics produce and instead of reinvesting within neoliberalism as an attempt to ‘fix’ such, reveling in these feelings. Exhaustion refuses to invest the productive energy that neoliberalism mandates of the psychological and instead embraces being a burnt out subject of capital.
Solvency: - Exhaustion solves- Reinvestment: Cross apply framework point 1B, due to the fact that neoliberalism has transferred the primary site of capital accumulation to the immaterial, it means the primary way in which neoliberalism is able to expand its control over the entirety of life is through circuiting life to produce productive energy within its own systems. This primarily operates through the site of the psychopolitical. - Rupture: The alt is able to resolve this, instead of allowing for the psychological to become hijacked into merely producing such power, exhaustion causes a radical disconnect that lets the psychological time to breath. This not only resolves for the way in which burnout is able to perpetuate its violence across all those lives that are indexed under neoliberalism, but it also allows for the creation of a base against neoliberalism. It provides moments where one can imagine, and thus organize against, neoliberalism by disconnecting the psychological from only being plugged in. - Idiotism: Given that one of the way in which psychopolitics is able to become sublimated by neoliberalism, it means that one of the mandates is that one has to be plugged into such systems at all times. The alt endorses the concept of ‘idiotism’ by endorsing the position of the way in which disconnection is produced as ‘un-intelligence’ as a force against this production of the way in which the mental environment and violent conceptions of intelligence are produced. - Revolutionary Freedom: The alt is able to reconstitute freedom under neoliberalism as not a question of choice, but rather as one focused around the throwing off of the psychological chains that neoliberal psychopolitics provide. This is key to resolve neoliberalism because, as framework point 1C indicates, the way in which neoliberalism is able to expand its control over life is by projecting an image of freedom that just perpetuates neoliberal violence. - Solves Aff - No perms- Reinvestment: Cross apply the framework, the way in which neoliberal psychopolitics operates is through the logic of infinite modulations and zones of exception. That’s a reason as to why the internal justification for the perm, i.e that we should risk burnout 1 more time, that we should instead reinvest within that which causes us mass depression and harm. That’s an independent reason to reject the perm.