The passage you quoted insightfully captures a shift from overt, externalized violence characteristic of classical fascism to a subtler, internalized, and systemic form of cruelty that operates through social and psychological mechanisms rather than open conflict or visible enemies. This resonates strongly with contemporary analyses of neoliberalism’s convergence with fascist tendencies, often termed “neoliberal fascism,” as explored in the search results.

Key points connecting your reflection with these analyses include:

• From Public Violence to Privatized Cruelty: Classical fascism clearly identified enemies and used public violence and spectacle to enforce conformity and exclusion. In contrast, neoliberalism fosters a system where violence is “psychologized” and internalized—individuals are judged as failures if they cannot conform to relentless demands for optimization, productivity, and self-management. Those who struggle are not publicly persecuted but socially forgotten, marginalized, or deemed inefficient “malfunctioning nodes” in a network that moves on without them.

• The Tyranny of Optimization and Market Logic: Neoliberalism redefines human value exclusively in terms of market productivity and individual responsibility, eroding social bonds, solidarity and collective understanding. This creates a “tyranny of the optimized life” where inefficiencies—whether people who cannot keep up—are discarded or ignored rather than supported. This is a form of cruelty embedded in the system’s design, not necessarily driven by explicit hatred or ideology but by a default setting that excludes what does not contribute economically.

• Depoliticization and Atomization: The neoliberal project promotes extreme individualism and self-reliance, undermining the social contract and collective resistance. This leads to social isolation, fear, and anxiety, which are fertile grounds for authoritarian and fascist tendencies to re-emerge, but in a form that is less about external enemies and more about internalized failure and exclusion.

• : Unlike fascism’s reliance on uniforms, rallies, and visible enemies, this new system operates through “annihilation without spectacle”—not through overt violence but through neglect, invisibilization, and systemic abandonment of those deemed inefficient or burdensome.

• Metaphysical Cruelty as a Design Flaw: The cruelty here is not necessarily a conscious evil but a structural or “design” flaw of a system that prioritizes market logic and optimization above human dignity and social solidarity. This “evil” is embedded in the system’s functioning rather than arising from explicit malevolence.

In summary, your reflection aligns with contemporary critiques that see neoliberalism as a new form of fascism or authoritarianism—one that dissolves clear enemies and public violence in favor of internalized, systemic cruelty based on economic efficiency and individual responsibility. This creates a society where suffering is privatized and invisibilized, and exclusion is normalized as a functional necessity rather than an ideological project.

Cruelty Without Spectacle

Cruelty Without Spectacle

The concept of “cruelty without spectacle” captures a defining feature of contemporary neoliberalism and its social order, where cruelty is embedded in systemic processes rather than enacted through overt, dramatic violence or public displays.

Key insights from the research include:

• Neoliberalism is not just an economic system but a system of cruelty that normalizes and even celebrates the suffering of those deemed inefficient, vulnerable, or “undeserving.” This cruelty is often invisible or privatized, lacking the spectacle of traditional political violence or fascism, yet it is deeply harmful and pervasive.

• Carla Ibled’s article on “optimistic cruelty” highlights how neoliberalism demands individuals embrace insecurity and precarity as part of life, punishing those who fail to conform to entrepreneurial ideals. This creates a social order where cruelty is not a side effect but constitutive—built into the system’s logic and justified as necessary for market efficiency.

• Unlike fascism’s public violence and clear enemies, neoliberal cruelty operates through social selection, stigma, and systemic neglect—those who cannot keep up are quietly excluded, forgotten, or discarded without public spectacle. This is cruelty enacted through policies of austerity, welfare cuts, and social abandonment, often justified by narratives of personal responsibility and meritocracy.

• The culture of cruelty under neoliberalism is also fueled by media and political rhetoric that stigmatizes the poor, unemployed, and marginalized as lazy or morally deficient, reinforcing social divisions without overt conflict or spectacle.

• This form of cruelty is described as a “theatre of cruelty” that is everyday and banal, embedded in the routines of governance, economic policy, and social attitudes rather than dramatic or spectacular acts of violence.

• The absence of spectacle makes this cruelty harder to resist or even recognize, as it is dispersed, depersonalized, and framed as normal or inevitable. It produces what some scholars call a “psychic numbing” or social forgetting that allows systemic harm to continue unchallenged.

In summary, “cruelty without spectacle” refers to the systemic, often invisible, and depersonalized cruelty embedded in neoliberal social and economic orders. It is cruelty enacted through exclusion, neglect, and stigmatization rather than overt violence or public displays, making it a profound and insidious form of social harm.