Madness and subjective destitution: Towards a possible exit from capitalism

Abstract

Madness, as Hegel tells us, is inherent within all, a state each of us moves through each time we acquire a new habit. Like madness, subjective destitution is also an inherent state, one each of us moves through in our initial state of being. The two states converge in the acquisition of a new habit when one is momentarily without a nature and, at the same time, submerged in madness, when one is no longer what they were and not yet what they are about to become. Though, as Lacan tells us, one cannot choose to go mad, and one does not choose to be born into poverty (or other forms of subjective destitution), one can, nonetheless, make a determination to engage in the act of subjective destitution and madness as a means for emancipation. The two states converge in a novel configuration that replicates, though differs from, spirit’s process of becoming.

Keywords

• hegel
• marx
• subjective destitution
• capitalism
• lacan