Psychoanalytic Sociology

Singularities are lonely social groups; lonely in their relation to other singularities and so, lacking in a language shared with one another. With this isolation comes certainty and thus their strangeness is no longer constitutive, no longer repressed, but becomes elevated to a mode of social organization. It is not that there is something strange within our social worlds but rather that our social world has itself become strange. This strain of thinking is explored by Rousselle in this book, who offers a new theory of the social bond that accounts for recent developments in the cultural logic of capitalism and paradoxically centers the ‘singularity’. Each chapter offers a different and compelling perspective on broader phenomenons and notions of estrangement within the civilization and rogue state, the master-slave dialectic, and the status of knowledge in the era of singularities. With enriched dialogues between Lacanian, Marxist theory and theoretical sociology as well as illustrative contemporary examples,Psychoanalytic Sociologyargues that our current social crises are exemplified by the way in which social groups project their own inhumanity onto others. Uncompromising and aggressive wars, ‘foreign agents,’ and ‘cancel culture,’ are all features of the era of singularities: there is no recourse to judicial procedures, international treaties, marriage contracts, or ethics committees. The war between singularities runs very deep, and it exists at every scale (e.g., interpersonal, institutional, and cultural). This book navigates this strange new social world, invents a language capable of articulating it, and attempts to discover a way out of its most profound crisis.