THE FANTASY OF SOVEREIGNTY WITHOUT THE BURDEN OF POWER: NEOLIBERALISM, CARNIVALIZATION, AND THE NEW PRECARIAT THROUGH THE LENS OF PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITIQUE

Abstract

The article examines the transformation of the ideological fantasy of mastery under late neoliberalism through the psychoanalytic theory of J. Lacan and S. Žižek, M. Bakhtin’s concept of carnival, and P. Bourdieu’s sociology of symbolic capital. It considers the displacement of the object-cause of desire from the classic consumption markers of the late-Soviet era (jeans, chewing gum, Coca-Cola) toward contemporary status symbols such as a purchased diploma, expensive devices, and consumer electronics bought on credit. It is argued that the new representative of the working class and precariat (used here as analytical rather than empirically homogeneous categories) inherits the fantasmatic structure of the “homo sovieticus,” yet grafts it onto the meritocratic myth of a natural right to rule, without being ready to bear the burden of the ruler’s responsibility. It is shown that this configuration rests on the superego injunction to enjoy, which converts personal failure into a matter of individual moral fault rather than a structural consequence of neoliberal capitalism. The article analyzes mechanisms of cultural carnivalization whereby the desire to switch roles (streaming, avatars, virtual identities) substitutes for an actual transformation of social positions. Using three episodes of the animated series South Park (“Cartmanland,” 2001; “Margaritaville,” 2009; “A Nightmare on FaceTime,” 2012) as a symptomatic cultural text, the study demonstrates the operation of cynical distance according to the Sloterdijk–Žižek formula (“they know very well what they are doing, but still they are doing it”; Sloterdijk, 1987, p. 5; Žižek, 1989, p. 33), as well as the effect of “equal opportunity hatred” (Samuels, 2008), which produces a position of cynical meta-distance in the viewer. A theoretical model is proposed for analyzing the “new homo sovieticus” as a figure combining nostalgia for imaginary sovereignty with the real debt-dependency of the precarious subject. Practical implications of the model for media consumption, education policy, and consumer-credit regulation in the Ukrainian context of labor migration and full-scale war are formulated as research hypotheses requiring further empirical testing rather than as established findings. The study is theoretical-analytical in nature and relies on a method of critical textual analysis (McKee, 2003; Fürsich, 2009) of cultural artifacts combined with a synthesis of psychoanalytic and socio-critical literature.