![]() ![]() The space of exchange would make breathing space and breathing space is what the capitalist subject, in all of her ambition, is trying to attain-the good life. Exchange value was supposed to leaven the subject through the handoff of value to another, who would return something in kind. ![]() ![]() Under capitalism, money is power and if one has only surplus amounts of it, sovereignty is infinite and yet a weight that cannot be borne. Thus, Berlant writes of the "cruel optimism and its mode of slow death," specifically speaking of the way that capitalism promises so much to the liberal subject and delivers so little, particularly in terms of commodification and exchange of goods in the market. Optimism in this view is the affective dimension of liberal ideology. It is "cruel" because there never was any hope of the kinds of redemption that liberal capitalism promises (the promise of fulfillment, of happiness, of safety and riches). "Cruel" optimism in particular is seen as a force that holds political subjects to the vagaries of liberal capitalism, using a false form of hope to keep people yoked to the system that oppresses them. ![]() Thanks in great part to Lauren Berlant's book Cruel Optimism, optimism has come in for a lot of criticism and bad press of late. Introduction: can pessimists change the world? ![]()
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