ABSTRACT

This paper argues that contemporary Western societies’ fixation on different elements of capitalist production, consumption and distribution lies at the heart of the crisis in mental health and wellbeing increasingly experienced by individuals within key state institutions. The paper weaves together Lefebvre’s and Marcuse’s theoretical insights to explore the generation of (time-)spaces in contemporary societies, focussing on higher education and specifically on the lived experiences of postgraduate researchers. The insistence that welfare states, turned into workfare states, treat the symptoms through drugs and sedation, shows the reach of consumption and distribution as a means to address the problems caused by production. Against this backdrop, the paper draws on empirical data from a recent study undertaken by the authors examining the challenges to mental and physical health that postgraduate study posed at a university in the English Midlands. The obliteration of the social, cultural and political determinants of this malaise is expedient to place the onus of corrective measures on the individual through a series of self-help strategies, which again, privatise the atomised self to its lowest common denominator: the cerebral, emotional self. If the body becomes sick in industrialisation, is it any wonder the mind becomes sick in cognitive capitalism?

摘要

本文认为，当代西方社会对资本主义生产、消费和分配不同要素的执着是主要国家机构内的个人日益经历的心理健康和福祉危机的核心。该论文将列斐伏尔和马尔库塞的理论见解结合在一起，探讨当代社会（时间）空间的生成，重点关注高等教育，特别是研究生研究人员的生活经历。坚持将福利国家转变为工作福利国家，通过药物和镇静剂来治疗症状，这表明消费和分配作为解决生产引起的问题的手段的影响力。在此背景下，该论文借鉴了作者最近进行的一项研究的经验数据，该研究考察了英国中部地区一所大学的研究生学习对心理和身体健康带来的挑战。消除这种不适的社会、文化和政治决定因素，可以通过一系列自助策略将纠正措施的责任放在个人身上，这些策略再次将原子化的自我私有化到最低的共同点：大脑、情绪化的自我。如果身体在工业化中生病了，那么心灵在认知资本主义中生病了还有什么奇怪的吗？这种不适的文化和政治决定因素是通过一系列自助策略将纠正措施的责任置于个人身上，这再次将原子化的自我私有化到最低的共同点：大脑的、情感的自我。如果身体在工业化中生病了，那么心灵在认知资本主义中生病了还有什么奇怪的吗？这种不适的文化和政治决定因素是通过一系列自助策略将纠正措施的责任置于个人身上，这再次将原子化的自我私有化到最低的共同点：大脑的、情感的自我。如果身体在工业化中生病了，那么心灵在认知资本主义中生病了还有什么奇怪的吗？