The Autophagic Society, by Anselm Jappe (Table of contents)

The Autophagic Society

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Anselm Jappe

(éditions La Découverte, Paris, 2017)

   In The Autophagic Society, the German philosopher Anselm Jappe puts forward an original and radical theoretical proposition through an analysis of extreme forms of violence. Focusing on the narcissistic-fetishistic subject, which he identifies with the subjectivity of capitalism in crisis, the ‘critique of value’ expands to include the sphere of psychology, in search of the actual subject of commodity fetishism. This book addresses all those who are concerned with the ‘death drive’ of contemporary society and who think that it is the result of a real crisis of civilisation.

Prologue: A King Who Eats Himself 

1. On the Fetishism that Rules the World

What the Critique of Value Tells Us

A Bad Subject

It’s Descartes’ Fault

Excursus: Descartes as Musicologist and the Acceleration of History

Kant, Theorist of Freedom?

The Marquis de Sade or Moral Law

Enough Philosophy, Action

Narcissism as Consolation for Impotence 

2. Narcissism and Capitalism

What is Narcissism?

Narcissism and Separation Anxiety

Psychoanalysis and Revolution: Eric Fromm and Herbert Marcuse

Christopher Lasch, Narcissism as a Critical Category

A Short History of Narcissism

Return to Nature, Defeat Nature or Defeat Capitalist Regression? 

3. Contemporary Thought in the Face of Fetishism

A Loss of Limits?

Evoke Authority to Escape the Market?

Idealism and Materialism

New Forms, Old Problems?

New Discourses on the Misery of the Times

An Older Transformation than Digital 

4. The Crisis of the Subject Form

The Capitalist Death Drive

School Shootings and Jihad

Understanding School Shootings

No Reason Anywhere

Capitalism and Violence 

Epilogue: What to Do with This Bad Subject? 

Appendix: Some Essential Aspects of the Critique of Value 

Bibliography

(Translation : Alastair Hemmens)