Eva Illouz sur les subjectivités néolibérales : contd.

C’est moi – non pas elle – qui qualifie ces effets de sujet sous le label lieutenan “néolibéral”. Elle dit plutôt “moderne”, et alors avec un sens sourcé dans Giddens mais aussi Weber (économie et société) – tiens et d’ailleurs aussi Polanyi on dirait, bien qu’elle ne le cite pas je crois : sur l’opération analysée comme “dis-embedding” (Why Love Hurts, 174), de l’érotique et de l’émotion.

Pourtant : elle en est bien aux formulations telles :

Like no other technology, the Internet (talking of dating sites) has radicalized the notion of the self as a “chooser” and the idea that the romantic encounter should be the result of the best possible choice. (183)

(This is so radically the teaching from living in the UK under Thatcher. In these years too, Policing the Crisis, critical inventions on one side, the North, and Anthony Giddens on the other, towards the Tony Blair horizon. Wow.)
Mais plus radical et fin encore, limite de l’audibilité en terrain public (2021 n’est pas 2012, date de publication, dans ce sens – quelque chose est crûment mesuré ici) : critique du féminisme comme pratique de la modernité, “rationalisation” du sujet et de la relation entre sujets :

But a caveat … we should keep in mind the need to differentiate between (the rationalization of romantic relationships) its different sources. For example, feminism and scientific language (later she writes “capitalist science”) have in common the aim of controlling relationships, of making them the object of procedures and rules, of subsuming them under abstract principles and procedures that derive from the legal and economic sphere. … (differentiating: instrumentalisation against and for, naturally. Then the argument though:) Yet, what must be differentiated from a normative standpoint cannot always be differentiated as cultural practices, because scientific language, feminism, and Internet technology all contribute to dis-embed the erotic bond through the formal rules provided by scientific knowledge systems, technology, and contractual proceduralism.

Here the key and the rub. See her study of sexual harassment policies at Harvard or the original draughters of the Antioch Rules (175, “Sexual Offense Policy”, Antioch College – that’s Ohio, and private). “Proceduralism and neutral language“, section title p. 174.