How neoliberalism’s crisis of meaning fuels performative suffering—and why satire alone won’t break the cycle
Original framing: “In a society desperate for distraction, a woman performing starvation overcommits” — The Conversation - Global
Disabled activists like *Patty Berne* (Sins Invalid) argue that performative suffering often *excludes* those who can’t perform—e.g., chronically ill people or neurodivergent individuals. Queer theorists like *Judith Butler* note how ‘gendered’ starvation (e.g., anorexia as ‘feminine’) erases how men’s suffering is pathologized as ‘weakness.’ The piece ignores how marginalized groups *reject* performativity: e.g., Black feminist *Audre Lorde*’s call for ‘the erotic as power,’ or Indigenous *Leanne Betasamosake Simpson*’s critique of ‘settler solidarity theater.’ A restored lens would center voices like these, asking: *Who benefits from this spectacle, and who is left behind?*
Chidgey’s novel exposes a *feedback loop* of late capitalism: as material conditions worsen, elites profit from spectacle while marginalized groups perform suffering to signal moral superiority.
The original framing treats this as a cultural quirk, but the deeper pattern is *neoliberalism’s* collapse of meaning—where even resistance is commodified. Historical precedents (from 19th-century hunger marches to 20th-century welfare protests) show that performative suffering has always been a symptom of *failed social contracts*, not individual pathology. The solution lies in *restorative economies* (like Māori *whānau* networks) and *algorithmic accountability* (e.g., taxing attention economies), paired with *artistic resistance* that turns distraction into action. The trickster lens reveals the absurdity: society *demands* suffering as entertainment while doing nothing to address its roots—a dynamic that mirrors colonial extraction, where pain is both weapon and commodity. To break the cycle, we must replace performativity with *collective healing*—like Finland’s UBS or Brazil’s *rodas de conversa*—and demand that platforms and policymakers answer to the *material* conditions they exploit.