Anxiety and the Antisocial

This chapter elaborates a novel theoretical framework that draws from the antisocial thesis in queer theory, particularly as formulated by Leo Bersani, as well as recent theoretical work on affect and emotion by Sianne Ngai and Sara Ahmed. Weaving these theoretical strands together, the chapter proposes that anxiety is not simply an individual psychological disposition, but can also be ascribed to modes of thought. The chapter then argues that anxiety, as a discursive affect, functions as a “straightening device,” policing antisocial subjects (or non-subjects) and calling them back to valued forms of sociality. This argument provides a foundation for interpreting the anxieties about playbor, automation, and the sharing economy discussed in the chapters that follow.

Playing

This chapter examines academic concerns that the leisurely façade of life online masks the economic exploitation of users, on whose backs companies like Facebook have amassed tremendous wealth. The chapter also considers the related critique of what it terms “leisure-at-work,” as when creative-class employees engage in various kinds of play while at the office and with the consent of their employers. The chapter draws from the antisocial thesis in queer theory to argue that concerns about the exploitation of playbor and leisure-at-work are motivated by an underlying discomfort with forms of leisure and pleasure understood as self-indulgent and irresponsible, in an effort to call readers back to the social.

Introduction

The first half of this chapter introduces the scope, argument, and theoretical orientation of the book. It also summarizes the debates surrounding the antisocial thesis in queer theory and offers a brief defence of this line of thinking. The second half of the chapter contains a summary of each of the remaining chapters and reiterates the overall argument of the book: that concerns about playbor, automation, and the sharing economy mask a deeper anxiety about the degradation of social bonds, and that this anxiety does not simply express an attachment to these bonds, but attempts to restore them by calling readers back to the social.

Sharing

This chapter examines popular and academic concerns that the sharing economy offers workers a raw deal—lower salaries, fewer benefits, and little job security—and that workers have essentially been forced to take sharing-economy jobs in the wake of the Great Recession, all of which have been masked by the communitarian rhetoric of sharing-economy proponents. The chapter does not dispute critics’ characterization of sharing economy practices as unsavory, but rather takes issue with the notion that contingent employment is necessarily a bad thing for workers. The chapter argues that concerns about the increasing precarity of labor are rooted in a rejection of the market and of money as inimical to valued social bonds. The antisocial thesis inspires a critical interpretation of money and the market as potentially liberatory.

Automating

This chapter examines popular and academic concerns that advances in digital technology are driving a new wave of automation, threatening the future of human labor. The chapter proposes that these concerns conceal an underlying attachment to governance, whether the governance of the state (which becomes necessary in order to ameliorate the effects of automation) or willful, collective-governance (against which docile technology serves as a discursive foil). The antisocial thesis provides a warrant for identifying and contesting this call to governance.

Epilogue

This chapter offers an extended rumination on the famous clause from Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto: “All that is solid melts into air.” Taking literally the melting of the solid (rather than metaphorically, as it was intended), the chapter reflects on the extent to which the seeming immateriality of contemporary life across a number of registers is associated with a lack of realness, which is, once again, a source of anxiety. The chapter considers a number of examples, including American heritage fashion, post-recession advertising campaigns, speeches by Barack Obama, and Spike Jonze’s 2013 film, Her. The chapter proposes that the real serves as a proxy for the social, once again calling us back to responsible forms of relationality.