신자유주의적 완벽주의 (neoliberal perfectionism)

[논둑길맨발로]

With general social malaise as a backdrop, neoliberalism has
succeeded in shifting cultural values so to now emphasize com-
petitiveness, individualism, and irrational ideals of the perfectible
self (Verhaeghe, 2014). These ideals are systemic within contem-
porary language patterns, the media, and social and civic institu-
tions, and are evident in the rise of competitive and individualistic
traits, materialistic behavior, and presentational anxieties among
recent generations of young people. Revisiting Hewitt et al.’s
(2017) model, it is interesting to consider how young people are
coming to construct a sense of self and identity in this kind of
culture. The notion of a flawed and disordered self appears espe-
cially relevant (Banai, Mikulincer, & Shaver, 2005). That is, a
sense of self overwhelmed by pathological worry and a fear of
negative social eval‎uation, characterized by a focus on deficien-
cies, and sensitive to criticism and failure. This sense of self is a
close match to the sense of self constructed by perfectionists and
is reflected in many of the recent changes to self, identity, and
behavior observed in young people. Young people appear to have
internalized irrational social ideals of the perfectible self that,
while unrealistic, are to them eminently desirable and obtainable.
Broadly speaking, then, increasing levels of perfectionism might
be considered symptomatic of the way in which young people are
coping—to feel safe, connected, and of worth—in neoliberalism’s
new culture of competitive individualism.

Perfectionism Is Increasing Over Time: A Meta-Analysis of Birth Cohort
Differences From 1989 to 2016
Thomas Curran
University of Bath
Andrew P. Hill
York St John University


Under Neoliberalism, You Can Be Your Own Tyrannical Boss

BYMEAGAN DAY

A new study finds an alarming rise in a novel form of psychological distress. Call it “neoliberal perfectionism.”


In an attempt to gauge how culturally contingent the phenomenon of perfectionism is, Curran and Hall performed a meta-analysis of available psychological data, looking for generational trends. They found that people born in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada after 1989 scored much higher than previous generations for all three kinds of perfectionism, and that scores increased linearly over time. The dimension that saw the most dramatic change was socially prescribed perfectionism, which increased at twice the rate of the other two. In other words, young people’s feeling of being judged harshly by their peers and the broader culture is intensifying with each passing year.
Curran and Hall attribute this change to the rise of neoliberalism and its cousin meritocracy. Neoliberalism favors market-based methods of assigning worth to commodities — and it designates everything it can as a commodity. Since the mid-1970s, neoliberal political-economic regimes have systematically replaced things like public ownership and collective bargaining with deregulation and privatization, promoting the individual over the group in the very fabric of society. Meanwhile, meritocracy — the idea that social and professional status are the direct outcomes of individual intelligence, virtue, and hard work — convinces isolated individuals that failure to ascend is a sign of inherent worthlessness.
Neoliberal meritocracy, the authors suggest, has created a cutthroat environment in which every person is their own brand ambassador, the sole spokesman for their product (themselves) and broker of their own labor, in an endless sea of competition. As Curran and Hall observe, this state of affairs “places a strong need to strive, perform, and achieve at the center of modern life,” far more so than in previous generations.
They cite data showing that young people today are less interested in engaging in group activities for fun, attending instead to individual endeavors that make them feel productive or fill them with a sense of achievement. When the world is demanding that you prove yourself worthy at every turn, and you can’t shake the suspicion that the respect of your peers is highly conditional, hanging out with friends can seem less compelling than staying in to meticulously curate your social media profiles.
One consequence of this rise in perfectionism, Curran and Hall argue, has been a series of epidemics of serious mental illness. Perfectionism is highly correlated with anxiety, eating disorders, depression, and suicidal thoughts. The constant compulsion to be perfect, and the inevitable impossibility of the task, exacerbate mental-illness symptoms in people who are already vulnerable. Even young people without diagnosable mental illnesses tend to feel bad more often, since heightened other-oriented perfectionism creates a group climate of hostility, suspicion, and dismissiveness — in which the jury is always out on everyone, pending group appraisal — and socially prescribed perfectionism involves an acute recognition of that alienation. In short, the repercussions of rising perfectionism range from emotionally painful to literally deadly.
And there’s one other repercussion of rising perfectionism: it makes it hard to build solidarity, which is the very thing we need in order to resist the onslaught of neoliberalism. Without healthy self-perceptions we can’t have robust relationships, and without robust relationships we can’t come together in the numbers it would take to rattle, much less upend, the whole political-economic order.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/01/under-neoliberalism-you-can-be-your-own-tyrannical-boss


The Link Between Neoliberalism, Perfectionism, and Mental Health Disorders

Posted on January 9, 2018 by Yves Smith



perfectionism is a core vulnerability to severe psychological illness.
The reason why perfectionism is a core vulnerability is because perfectionism is focused … The whole drive in energy from perfectionism comes from all this effort, all of this drive, and all of this need for validation comes from a place of trying to perfect an imperfect self, trying to perfect ourselves. That’s fine. If we’re getting positive feedback and if we’re achieving, those things are okay.
But the problem is for perfectionists, because they have excessively high goals and because perfectionism is by definition an impossible goal, when we fail, because the consequence of failure is so catastrophic for our sense of self-esteem, because we tie our self-esteem on others’ approval and a need for higher achievement, then when we fail or when we are rejected by others or when we don’t receive positive feedback, then we tend to ruminate, we tend to brew over those, what could’ve been otherwise or what we should’ve done. And over time, those very negative thoughts and feelings turn into anxiety, depression, and in the most extreme cases, suicidal thought. So it’s a highly damaging trait, and these trends are quite worrying because of that.


https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/01/link-neoliberalism-perfectionism-mental-health-disorders.html