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Cynicism As Neoliberal Affect

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Cynicism As Neoliberal Affect STUCK IN THE IMPASSE: CYNICISM AS NEOLIBERAL AFFECT STUCK IN THE IMPASSE: CYNICISM AS NEOLIBERAL AFFECT By CAROLYN W. VELDSTRA, B.A., M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy McMaster University © Copyright by Carolyn Veldstra, February 2014 McMaster University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (2014) Hamilton, Ontario (English and Cultural Studies) TITLE: Stuck in the Impasse: Cynicism as Neoliberal Affect AUTHOR: Carolyn Veldstra, B.A. (McMaster University), M.A. (University of Western Ontario) SUPERVISOR: Susie O’Brien NUMBER OF PAGES: vi, 256 ii PH.D. THESIS – C. Veldstra, McMaster University – English and Cultural Studies Abstract What if we admitted to feeling cynical? Recent work in affect theory has begun to address the category of what Sianne Ngai terms “ugly” feelings (Ngai 2007, Edelman 2004, Halberstam 2011) and the costs associated with the premium we place on so-called positive modes of thinking and feeling (Berlant 2011, Ahmed 2010, Love 2007), yet cynicism persists in many accounts as the feature of an undesirable political subjectivity. Likewise, in popular and political discourse, cynicism is denounced as the mark of an ineffectual subject who chooses to opt out, rather than reach for supposedly obvious markers of (capitalist) achievement. This dissertation refuses these characterizations, instead considering cynicism as an affect bound up in neoliberal sociopolitical shifts. I argue that cynicism describes a feeling of living under structural conditions that curtail— in ways that are often effaced—the kinds of self-determining subjectivities that have been taken for granted as a feature of Western, liberal democracies and remain foundational to imagined modes of dissent. Exploring this situation in the context of three cultural frames—politics and governance, changing modes of labour in late-capitalist economies, and a structure of feeling premised on the pursuit of happiness—I examine cynical subjectivities in fiction, film, and American political discourse so as to 1) develop an inquiry into affect as developing out of the relation between subject and structure; 2) acknowledge the commonality of a feeling of impasse and dominant cultural narratives that mask this frustration of agency; and 3) consider inertia or passivity as sensible orientations in a cultural moment in which the costs of momentum are becoming increasingly visible and its promised payoffs increasingly eroded. iii PH.D. THESIS – C. Veldstra, McMaster University – English and Cultural Studies Acknowledgements My gratitude begins with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, The Hooker Family, and the Department of English and Cultural Studies; without their generous support I wouldn’t have had the means to start thinking through this project in the first place. At the oral defense for my comprehensive exam, my committee—Susie O’Brien, Mary O’Connor, and Lorraine York—took a moment to acknowledge the fact that we were four women conducting a defense and in that moment solidified for me the ongoing importance of a female voice and presence in the academy. It has been a great honour and pleasure working with and learning from each of you. I’d like especially to thank my supervisor Susie for her unflagging faith in my ability to conceptualize this project and for leading me to trust that I could bring together what at many moments seemed certain to fly apart. I’d like to thank my external examiner Michael O’Driscoll, who during my oral defense managed to ask precisely the questions that remained for me at the end of writing. Your generous and thoughtful engagement with this project continues to open it up to me in new ways, even as one sense of completion arrives. My thanks also to Sianne Ngai for saying “yes” to a request from an unknown Ph.D. student from Canada, for hosting me at UCLA, and providing me such insightful guidance. So many dear friends, family, and friends-who-are-family talked me up or down, as needed, throughout the last years. You have housed me, fed me, laughed with me, cried with me, gotten me out of the house, and asked questions about my work that helped me to clarify it to myself. Thank you for being my community (and reminding me that I need one): Phanuel Antwi, Dustin Atlas, Adrienne Batke, Sue Bowles, Sarah Blacker, Daryl Brook, Sarah Brophy, Penelope Burk, Cassel Busse, Daniel Coleman, Fiona Coll, Coco Collelmo, Amber Dean, Matthew Dorrell, Anita and Ray Dykstra, Jessie Forsyth, Emily Hill, Petra Hroch, Jen Hsieh, Pamela Ingleton, Brad Isaacs, Rose Janson, Craig Jennex, Jenny and Gerald Krabbe, Dave Kretsinger, Jamie Lawson, Evan Mauro, Dushan Milic, Vinh Nguyen, Jacqui Oakley, Simon Orpana, Andrew Pendakis, Malissa Phung, Hilda Rasula, Kyle Reed, Sharlee Reimer, Jordan Sheridan, Justin Sully, Nandini Thiyagarajan, Matthew Tiessen, Brian Vandervecht, Sara Vanderwillik, Linda Walinga, Laura Wiebe, and Ryan Wiley. My special thanks to Nick Holm, whose academic interests tend to mirror my own: our conversations, and disagreements, fundamentally shaped this project. To my brothers Simeon and Aaron, and my sister-in-all-but-law Dina Davidson: thank you for seeing me through one of the worst of times in the middle of things. iv PH.D. THESIS – C. Veldstra, McMaster University – English and Cultural Studies Finally, I want to thank Kasim, who came into this story towards the end and put up with bad timing, long distances, and obliterated weekends all for the glimmer of what is to come. I dedicate this work to my mother, Johanna (Walinga) Veldstra. I do everything in the echo of your love, strength, and commitment. v PH.D. THESIS – C. Veldstra, McMaster University – English and Cultural Studies Table of Contents Introduction: “We Are Not Cynical!” 1 1: Orienting Cynicism within Politics 26 2: Falling Men and Women 86 3: The Crisis of Happiness and a Cynical Response 159 Conclusion: Plausible Expectations of Hope 226 Works Cited 241 vi PH.D. THESIS – C. Veldstra, McMaster University – English and Cultural Studies Introduction: “We Are Not Cynical!” If there were ever a time that we needed our cynicism, it is now—when the future that is being marketed to us is so insistently bright. —Heather Love, “Compulsory Happiness and Queer Existence” On September 30, 2012, Stephen Colbert gave a rare out-of-character interview on Oprah’s Next Chapter. As she and Colbert chat on the wrap-around, second-floor balcony of his in-laws’ Charleston mansion, Oprah raises what she calls a common criticism of his show: that it can appear cynical, and, in the context of his audience of “young, impressionable people,” she wonders whether that is desirable. She asks, “Do you worry that you’re creating a generation of cynics?” To which Colbert responds, “I don’t worry that I am; I would hope that I’m not,” going on to both define cynicism (sort of) and explicate his opposition to it (sort of): I don’t believe people are only interested in themselves and I wouldn’t want to encourage that and I wouldn’t want to encourage no political engagement, because young people who purport to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynical. But cynicism is not wisdom. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom but cynicism is a self-imposed blindness. You put the blinders on yourself to protect yourself from a world you think might hurt you or disappoint you. Be a fool. Believe things will be good. Better to be hurt. And so, I would hate to think that people got cynical. (emphasis added) Oprah concurs nodding sagely as she tells Colbert that was “nicely said” and the show cuts to commercial, Colbert’s definition and critique standing as the common sense response to the low-lobbed question. Of course we don’t want people, particularly young people, to be cynical. 1 PH.D. THESIS – C. Veldstra, McMaster University – English and Cultural Studies The fear that young people could be becoming cynical gained traction in 2013— though Colbert was not implicated—when the Harvard Institute of Politics published its spring survey reporting findings that suggest young voters are becoming increasingly disenchanted with American politics. In his conclusion to the Executive Summary, Director of Polling for the survey John Della Volpe writes, Our research indicates that the hyperpartisanship and gridlock and that has befallen Washington, DC is having a traumatic effect not just on our nation’s status at home and abroad, but on the political health of tens of millions of once (and hopefully future) idealistic young people. At no time since President Obama was elected in 2008 have we reported less trust, more cynicism and more partisanship among our nation’s youngest voters. […] We have been warned. (online) Here cynicism is tocsin, a warning we must heed lest we suffer the effect of a generation irreparably traumatized and locked in cynicism, bound by a partisanship that will eventually enervate the political system. Youth demands idealism; we hope only because our youth can hope. It follows then, that the trauma inflicted on national political health is a loss of hope, a faltering of idealism. Of course we cannot have this. America must be driven by idealistic youth. In her New York Times article reporting on the Harvard study, Sheryl Gay Stolberg highlights one of the survey’s key themes: the optimism of young voters— which played a key role in buoying Barack Obama to the Whitehouse—has deflated in the wake of Obama’s performance, which Andy Welsh, one of Stolberg’s representative young voter interviewees, describes as “a real bummer” (NYT online). The cynicism of younger voters here is posed in an inverse relation to their enthusiastic bolstering of the “Hope” campaign just a few years prior; cynicism spreads as the hope bubble bursts in 2 PH.D.
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