Revolution of Personality, or the Rise of Personaliat

D.A. Davydov
2020 Полития  
The idea of the post-capitalist society has long been associated with the "grassroots" struggle of the exploited classes for the society that is free from all forms of domination and exploitation. D.Davydov does not consider this approach scientific and proposes one should change the lens of research and focus on what is happening at the level of the elites, where the new world is slowly maturing and new relationships are often intertwined with the old ones. The article is devoted to the
more » ... cation of the argument, according to which the development of the post-capitalist social relations has been going on for a relatively long time — as the rise of people who "possess a personality" (personaliat). The author demonstrates that the unfol ding processes can be explained by the deep economic changes — the transformation of creativity into the predominant source of consumer values. The author elabo rates the idea that the essence of the knowledge economy is not capitalist or even is anti-capitalist, but at the same time he suggests that it is the nature of social relations around creative activity that should be consi dered rather than creative activity per se. From his point of view, despite the fact that the consequences of such activities complicate the functioning of the capitalist economy, the demise of the old economy does not mean that somewhere beyond the horizon we will have a cloudless non-antagonistic future. It is much more relevant to view post-capitalist transformation as the gradual rise to dominance of those who possess power over public attention. The author starts the article with a brief "history of personality" and after that demonstrates how the depersonalized world was gradually "colo nized" by creative public figures. According to his conclusion, today we witness a large-scale transformation of the Political, which is associated with the trend that representatives of personaliat assumed roles of key actors in the political process. Power is transferred from those with money to those with persona lity. However, this shift in itself hardly guarantees the establishment of an egalitarian social order that has overcome all forms of alienation and inequality. Moreover, at the moment such prospect looks doubtful.
doi:10.30570/2078-5089-2020-99-4-68-89 fatcat:zrv44w54hbe2ridj6xmiarxwgu