Monday, December 29, 2008

Capitalism Contra Kierkegaard/Existentialism

If we take the existential concept that 'the dread of freedom' is a fundamental component of the human condition in which the self lives in a sort of sickness unto death where one fears taking responsibility for ones life or when one is "crippled by the existential dread of freedom and burdened b ya sense of self". I think that there is some everyday expression of this fear when one finds oneself with free time and is overcome with anxiousness instead of feeling relaxed (because you feel that you have to do work or do something meaningful etc. etc.). Now consider mundane labor, and the Marxist concept of labour-power and how a worker can pour their lief force their species being into labour that they no longer own functionally selling their 'self' to the capitalist for the time period that they are working. They are selling the eight hours that they work (9-5 for example) to someone else. Could this be read instead of the founding psychologically dilemma of capitalism but instead as a line of flight from the 'dread of freedom' and functionally subletting or delegating one's 'dread of freedom' or selfhood to the capitalist. As you lose your self you lose the sense of self that creates the dread of freedom.

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