ABSTRACT
The era of communicative capitalism is an era of commanded individuality. The command circulates in varying modes. Each is told, repeatedly, that she is unique and encouraged to cultivate this uniqueness. The injunction to individuality is so ubiquitous that it is easy to forget its histories and modulations. The research of sociologists such as Christopher Lasch, Richard Sennett, Jennifer M. Silva, and Carrie M. Lane treads a path through this history as it attends to the pathologies accompanying capitalist processes of individuation. The intensification of capitalism amplifies pressures on and for the individual. These pressures are political: the individual is called on to express her opinion, speak for herself, get involved. She is told that she, all by herself, can make a difference. Franco Berardi highlights the conquest of internal space, the interior world, the life of the mind endemic to communicative capitalism. Informational intensification and temporal acceleration saturate the attention to pathological levels.
