{"title":"The Decline of Phatic Efficiency","authors":"Matthew J. Rigilano","doi":"10.1353/pmc.2022.0003","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article assesses phatic communication now, when symbolic efficiency is in decline. As a result of neoliberal capitalism and industrialized social media, small talk is both obligatory and suffused with anxiety. Under disciplinary society, chitchat has been a threat to biopolitical control. Today, small talk is a form of surplus value that enters directly into the market. No longer a ritual of social facilitation, phatic communication takes on a pathological character. This article relies on psychoanalytic theory to complicate Paolo Virno’s take on the contemporary position of phatic language. In so doing, it asks: what does small talk become once the symbolic pact that ensured its efficacy has been broken?","PeriodicalId":55953,"journal":{"name":"POSTMODERN CULTURE","volume":" ","pages":"-"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"POSTMODERN CULTURE","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/pmc.2022.0003","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
Abstract:This article assesses phatic communication now, when symbolic efficiency is in decline. As a result of neoliberal capitalism and industrialized social media, small talk is both obligatory and suffused with anxiety. Under disciplinary society, chitchat has been a threat to biopolitical control. Today, small talk is a form of surplus value that enters directly into the market. No longer a ritual of social facilitation, phatic communication takes on a pathological character. This article relies on psychoanalytic theory to complicate Paolo Virno’s take on the contemporary position of phatic language. In so doing, it asks: what does small talk become once the symbolic pact that ensured its efficacy has been broken?
期刊介绍：
Founded in 1990 as a groundbreaking experiment in scholarly publishing on the Internet, Postmodern Culture has become a leading electronic journal of interdisciplinary thought on contemporary culture. PMC offers a forum for commentary, criticism, and theory on subjects ranging from identity politics to the economics of information.
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