Politics of identity (dis)affections: psychoanalytic-phenomenological interface of liberal democracy and public policies

Abstract

This text aims to reflect, theoretically, on identity (dis)affections in liberal democracies, with its reflections on the implementation of public policies, as human and social demands. From the psychoanalytic perspective, under the bias of Paul Ricoeur’s phenomenological philosophy, it analyzes how modern societies, driven by the politics of  helplessness, are still dependent on a theological-political core, within a patriarchal-religious view of command in the likeness of an omnipotent authority. Therefore, it points out the importance of (re)thinking about the deconstruction of that model, bringing the figure of the subject capable of speaking, acting, narrating, and taking responsibility as a basis for the consolidation of the subject of right, considering the possible deleterious impacts on public policies and their legitimate social demands, based on legal humanism and human rights. These policies, by the bias of a critical psychology, are under serious risks of
dismantling these structuring bases, when an authoritarian, narcisic, and superegoic personality, moved by their ideological whims, with which alienated individuals identify themselves, occupies power and considers themselves master of all that is good or bad for a people, determining what shall be protected by their power and what deserves no attention from it.