INTRODUCTION

The introduction entails a brief summary of the passage from homo politicus to homo economicus, showing how our modern age has been characterised by rampant individualisation, fuelled by neoliberal ideology and the advertising industry. It argues that in the final stage of neoliberal biopolitical power, the disintegration of welfare state institutions has paved the way for the glorification of ‘individual responsibility’, while the dismantling of collective security and social solidarity imposes personal solutions. Displaced from the realm of the commons and withdrawn into the comforting intimacy of individuality, humanity found itself reduced to a uniform rendition, one and the same for all.

Thus, the book advocates for the deconstruction of this externally imposed perception that glorifies a fate entirely individual: the realisation, that is, that to truly open oneself to both one’s own desires and those of the Other, one must first bravely break through the barriers of one-dimensional identity. Yes, this endeavour will always remain incomplete if one is satisfied with merely transitioning from the One to the Many. The introduction ends by arguing that it is an even greater challenge to take the next step, to perceive the reinvention of oneself as a communal endeavour, inseparable from the tangled webs of bonds and interdependent relationships that exist between us.

CHAPTER 1 - THE BIRTH OF THE ONE  

Chapter 1 introduces the concept of ‘The All-Measuring Society’, marking a society in which every facet of social life has become ensnared in transactional dealings, profit evaluations, and opportunities for financial gain. It is within this very context that the One was born, an age characterised by the prevalence of a utilitarian, performance-oriented, and relentlessly competitive subject. It argues that modernity’s ‘promises’ self-determination and self-realisation as prerequisites for freedom and collective emancipation, have been rendered nothing more that illusions and empty promises, since this society breeds subjugation, mass individualisation through lifestyle choices, and homogenisation through pseudo-differentiation.

CHAPTER 2 - PLACELESS TEMPORALITIES

Chapter 2 investigates the relationship between space, identity and the sense of belonging. It argues that contemporary metropolitan centers are filled with pompous structures and glass facades, tailor-made for a culture of narcissism that delights in adorning itself at every opportunity. It further shows that these are the cities that correspond to our atomized and consumerized society. Instead of fostering collective identities and symbolic practices that bind people together, they elevate individualistic desires and personal lifestyle choices that breed loneliness. The chapter ends by arguing that humans still urge for urban landscapes that foster mutual awareness and a sense of communal life; spaces that operate through solidarity, sharing, and practices of commoning.

CHAPTER 3 - THE RISKS OF PARTNERING 

Chapter 3 delves into the questions of eroticism, interpersonal relationships, and partnership. It shows how the All-Measuring Society converts everything into impersonal and commodified terms, imposing technological intermediaries, artificial implements, and coercive behaviours in the most delicate of human connections. It argues that the only counterweight to a society of calculating self-interest is the openness to our multifaceted self, to shared suffering, to the realities of the Other. By depicting companionship as a communal endeavour, a strategy for cultivating communities, a crucible for forging ties of solidarity, it views partnering as both a political imperative and a poetic gesture.

CHAPTER 4 - THE COURAGE OF CREATIVITY

This last chapter delves into the intricacies of creative praxis and imagination. In contrast to the notion of ‘individual creator-genius’, it argues that there is no creative process that is solely individual, and that all creative processes function as a channel of communication, as a transmitter appealing to the latent collectivities struggling to survive. It examines imagination not only as an aesthetic but also as a political force, social and subversive at the same time, for its potential to form alternatives for every field. It exposes the grave error of adhering to the prevailing maxim that ‘one’s freedom ends where another’s begins’, following instead Castoriadis, who claims that ‘one’s freedom begins exactly where the other’s freedom begins’. The chapter ends by advocating for the need of more creative expressions through new collective imperatives and shared narratives.    

EPILOGUE