Woke in Fright

Since 2017, prominent Lacanian psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic schools have made an explicit  turn towards a politically reactionary version of liberalism. In this milieu, political party involvement is viewed with suspicion, or as pathologically symptomatic, and there is a sweeping equivalence between left and right that permits its authors to deploy terms such as ‘Islamo-gauchisme’ or ‘LePeno-Trotskyisme’. In this context, unsurprisingly, the same analysts denounce ‘wokeism’, segregation and identity politics as one of the principal evils of these troubled times.

The Jargon of Authenticity – Positive Psychology and Ideology

The following  is an earlier version of an essay that first appeared here. For those who are interested, it repeats and expands upon certain recent themes of mine, mainly regarding the political and ideological implications of certain psychology trends.