ABSTRACT
This chapter aims at theorising a new affect, spite, which may be defined as a willingness to cause harm for harms sake. It describes that spite has become one of the major affective dimensions of post-politics. Spite is the antithesis of one of the most cherished of aims commonly espoused by progressive ideologies. Indeed, enlightenment ideologies such as liberalism have had a longstanding interest in the value of reason because it enables people to become rational and controllable. As a progressive ideology, neoliberalism asserts rationality and reason as the proper bases for nature and society. It desires self-interested human beings who act rationally so that they become less of a threat to themselves as well as to the existing order. The concept of freedom and rationality make sense only as far as they facilitate the consumer choice-making process. Neoliberalism is underpinned by the idea that human beings are governed by reason, science, and self-interest in their activities.
