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Freedom has become a more efficient form of coercion. The achievement-subject believes itself free, yet this supposed freedom is merely the internalization of exploitation. We are not oppressed by external forces—we optimize ourselves voluntarily, mistaking self-exploitation for self-realization.
The imperative of authenticity—“Be yourself!”—functions as the most insidious form of power. It transforms the self into an enterprise that must perpetually produce uniqueness. This compulsion toward individuality exhausts us more thoroughly than any external domination ever could.
Depression and burnout are not mere psychological ailments but social pathologies of a society that has replaced the disciplinary model with the achievement model. The exhausted self cannot even identify an oppressor to resist. There is no one to blame, no external enemy. The enemy is the self that has failed to achieve, failed to be “free,” failed to be sufficiently unique.
The achievement-subject is simultaneously master and slave—and precisely this unity prevents revolution. Shame replaces repression as the dominant affect. Where disciplinary society produced madmen and criminals, achievement society produces depressives and losers.