What is the relationship between capitalism and mental health? In his most unsettling book to date, Franco “Bifo” Berardi embarks on an exhilarating journey through philosophy, psychoanalysis and current events, searching for the social roots of the mental malaise of our age.
Spanning an array of horrors – the Aurora “Joker” killer; Anders Breivik; American school massacres; the suicide epidemic in Korea and Japan; and the recent spate of “austerity” suicides in Europe – Heroes dares to explore the darkest shadow cast by the contemporary obsession with relentless competition and hyper-connectivity. In a volume that crowns four decades of radical intellectual work, Berardi develops the psychoanalytical insights of his friend Félix Guattari and proposes dystopian irony as a strategy to disentangle ourselves from the deadly embrace of absolute capitalism.
What People Are Saying
“An exquisite reading of our historical situation.” Michael Robbins, Chicago Tribune
“Does more than merely scratch the surface...ultimately, Bifo advocates for the limitless power of imagination and irony as the only antidotes in a world urging to be rebuilt from scratch." Bookslut
“The sting of this hollow present is felt most acutely in our emotional life, a point driven home by Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi in Heroes … a densely packed work of political theory.” Michael Schapira, Full Stop
“Bifo is a master of global activism in the age of depression. His mission is to understand real existing capitalism. Sense the despair of the revolt, enjoy this brilliant ‘labour of the negative’!” Geert Lovink, Founding Director of the Institute of Network Cultures
“As a diagnostician, Berardi is among the sharpest.” Slate
About the Author
Franco “Bifo” Berardi was the founder of the pirate radio station Radio Alice in 1976. One of the most prominent members of the Italian movement Autonomia, Berardi worked closely with the French psychoanalyst Félix Guattari throughout the 1980s. Since the early 1990s, much of his theoretical work has focused on the relationship between psychopathology, information technology and capitalism.
His latest books in English are And: Phenomenology of the End, Heroes: Mass Murder and Suicide, and The Uprising: On Poetry and Finance.