The Paranoid Mind: The (Im)possiblity of Radical Change

Abstract

The article is a critical reflection on the (im)possible prospects of the dominant anti-capitalist narratives of socialist radical political philosophies organised around binary thinking, essentializing and totalizing logics of the normative Enlightenment thought and masculinist affects. I shall argue that the constructing of total (anticapitalist) systems and acting out heroic affective scripts for change in the contemporary conjuncture are reactionary and melancholia-driven political strategies, which cement the status quo and the present power relations rather than bring on the change.