‘We are the 99% and we have come here to heal’: Anarcho-populism as neo-liberal therapy

Millette, Holly-Gale (2013) ‘We are the 99% and we have come here to heal’: Anarcho-populism as neo-liberal therapy. Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics (CAPPE) Conference: Conflict, Revolt and Democracy in the Neoliberal World, University of Brighton, Brighton, United Kingdom. 07 - 08 Nov 2013. (Submitted)

Abstract

In October of 2011, Lowndes and Warren, speaking from the front line, proffered that if Occupy [Wall Street] could “overcome the inevitable challenges facing those who confront extreme concentrations of economic and political power…its model of open-source populism [had] the potential to be as transformative as prior populist movements on the left—or even more so.” This and other proselytising on Occupy had me curios. What about the people, the broken societies that physically constituted the mass in question? Far from being cynical of Lowndes and Warren, I felt that they and others were missing the point slightly. Surely, the behaviour of the groups gathering in city squares round the world gave that away.

This paper suggest that events such as Occupy provide a porous space (what Laclau calls an ‘open signifier’) of engagement for solidifying and augmenting the personal identity of the neo-liberal subject by regenerating and sustaining a sense of meaning and buttressing and invigorating the social connectedness of its cohort. Occupy Wall Street and other anarcho-populist Events – I use this term in both the Badiouian sense and the performative one – provided an existential and transcendental platform of engagement for its participants and my interest is in the identity of this protest. I would like to suggest that the event space of protest is one of psychosocial requirement and as such it performs an important function (whether that be first, last or intermediary) for the precarious and disaffected to mourn, heal and regroup. Far from being the revolution, I would argue that what is present in these people’s assemblies is the hesitation on either side of the event and that this is, quite possibly, as important as the revolution itself.

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Contributors

Author: Holly-Gale Millette

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