Indifference and the desertion of subjectivity in Catherine Malabou’s approach

Abstract

In this article, we explore Catherine Malabou’s (1956–) contribution to the deconstruction of the subjectivity of traditional metaphysics, carried out through her theses on the constitution of psychic subjectivity and the deconstitution of identity resulting from trauma. In this sense, we address the roles of the brain, homeostasis, and, above all, affects in the formation of psychic subjectivity, understood as the emergence—into consciousness and self-consciousness—of processes of physiological self-regulation and plastic self-formation. Affects are movements within these processes and, as such, constitute the subject’s connections to life and to what matters, structuring “higher” psychic acts such as language, cognition, and decision-making. Affective and neural subjectivity is far more fragile and vulnerable, as it is ontologically exposed to accident. In light of this, trauma is a violent shock to affective processes, disturbing the human capacity to experience affects and leading to a state of disaffection or indifference, triggering a destructive plasticity that annihilates identity and the processes of receiving and giving form to oneself. This constitutes a desertion of subjectivity, which carries profound political implications.