Neoliberal mentality is seeping into the brain of each of us. Some have accepted it completely, others are trying to, and many more can’t or won’t join. Which category are you? This simple test will help you figure it out.
When I think about changing my profession or occupation to a completely new one, it feels
1 – exhilarating
2 – scary
3 – stupid
4 – completely detached from reality
How many apps do you use to track and enhance your productivity?
1 – one or two
2 – three or more
3 – none
4 – what are productivity apps?
Do you agree that traveling is one of the most important things in life?
1 – it’s fine but not crucial
2 – it is very important to be able to travel
3 – I don’t have money to travel
4 – it’s pretty unimportant
How do you feel about the expression “pushing the boundaries”?
1 – depends on the context
2 – positive
3 – negative
4 – I don’t understand the expression
What is more important, duty or freedom?
1 – duty but only if you freely chose it
2 – freedom
3 – depends on the context
4 – can’t say for sure
What are you most scared of from the following list:
1 – chronic illness
2 – a climate catastrophe
3 – going broke
4 – war
Do you agree that it’s crucial to have children to continue your bloodline?
1 – it’s important to have children but not for that reason
2 – every person has their own reasons to have or not have children, and these reasons are equally valid
3 – I agree
4 – it’s great if you can afford it
Mental illness is unfairly stigmatized
1 – nobody can stigmatize you if you haven’t chosen to be stigmatized
2 – it’s true
3 – to the contrary, it’s fashionable to be a mental basket case
4 – this is a woke talking point
I help my children do their homework (or would help if I had them)
1 – there is homework? How quaint
2 – yes. Academic success is very important
3 – I homeschool
4 – I know I should but I don’t have the time
I don’t have enough money because
1 – I have psychological problems, and I’m working on them with my finance coach
2 – I don’t work hard enough and spend too much
3 – the economy is shit
4 – there’s no fairness in life
How many personal development courses have you taken in this calendar year?
1 – two or three
2 – do my yoga classes count?
3 – none
4 – are you trying to be funny on purpose?
Do you (or would you) read books on child-rearing?
1 – who has the time?
2 – yes, a lot
3 – I read articles online on the subject
4 – my parents raised me perfectly fine without any books
Where do you get most of your news?
1 – LinkedIn
2 – Twitter or Facebook
3 – TV
4 – I’m too busy for the news
What are your most used apps?
1 – email and reader apps
2 – social media apps
3 – I don’t use smartphones
4 – gaming / betting apps
Work/life balance is important
1 – that’s stupid because work is life
2 – very important but hard to achieve
3 – no, one is much more important than the other
4 – only snowflakes say that
You find yourself having to take care of an elderly relative you don’t much like, and you think…
1 – this is an opportunity for personal growth
2 – I hate having to take time away from my kids to take care of this relative
3 – I have to do what I have to do
4 – I need to have a drink. Or five
Ready for the responses? Here they are:
If none of the options fully describe you, place yourself into category 2 and remember that everything that is true for the 2s is even truer for you.
If you have more 1s than other numbers:
Congratulations! You have been completely neoliberalized, and neoliberalism is rewarding you very well for being a smart, loyal adherent. You must really love your life, even if many people think you are a cold bastard who has been very lucky. Neoliberalized, by the way, is not an insult. Neoliberalism can be bloody exhilarating if you do it right. And you definitely mastered it.
If you have more 2s than other numbers:
You really want to be part of the neoliberal game but you are not doing it right. The way you are playing it, you’ll end up on anti-anxiety meds and sleeping aids in no time. You are being hit with every negative consequence of neoliberalism and are catching no positives. Do you feel like what you just read means you aren’t trying hard enough? Wannabe neoliberals always feel like they aren’t trying hard enough. Guilt and self-blame are their constant companions. Want to move out of this category? Quit the guilt game.
If you have more 3s than other numbers:
Neoliberalism goes against your every instinct. And it doesn’t like you either. Neoliberalism and you are filled with well-deserved mutual resentment. You know exactly what you hate about it and why. Your courage is to be admired.
If you have more 4s than other numbers:
You are lost and confused in the neoliberal storm. And probably very pissed off. I don’t blame you but you’ll feel better if you calm down a bit and look over at category 3. These are your friends in the anti-neoliberal camp but they aren’t freaking out and can help.
Clarissa's Blog 
Could you please define in a future post what exactly you mean by “neo-liberal”? Or link to a post in which you define it? For me, neo-liberal is a very narrow economic description, for you it seems to be a very broad category, like “woke”.
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“Neo-liberalism is not merely destructive of rules, institutions and rights. It is also productive of certain kinds of social relations, certain ways of living, certain subjectivities. In other words, at stake in neo-liberalism is nothing more, nor less, than the form of our existence – the way in which we are led to conduct ourselves, to relate to others and to ourselves. Neo-liberalism defines a certain existential norm in western societies and, far beyond them, in all those societies that follow them on the path of ’modernity’”.
Dardot, Pierre and Christian Laval. The New Way of the World: On Neo-Liberal Society. Trans. Gregory Elliott. London: Verso, 2013. [2009]
“Neoliberal culture as a structure of feeling impels us to extend the market, its technologies, approaches and mindsets into all spheres of human life, to move the ideology of consumer choice to the center of individual existence, and to look to ourselves rather than larger social-welfare structures or society as the source of our success or the blame for our failure-indeed, to define “success” and “failure” in market terms. In short, to become entrepreneurs of ourselves as Foucault terms it”.
Ventura, Patricia. Neoliberal Culture: Living with American Neoliberalism. Farnham / Burlington, Ashgate, 2012.
“As the entrepreneur of its own self, the neoliberal subject has no capacity for relationships with others that might be free of purpose. . . A real feeling of freedom occurs only in a fruitful relationship – when being with others brings happiness. But today’s neoliberal regime leads to utter isolation. People who fail in the neoliberal achievement-society see themselves as responsible for their lot and feel shame instead of questioning the society or the system. Herein lies the particular intelligence defining the neoliberal regime: no resistance to the system can emerge in the first place.”
Han, Byung-Chul. Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power. Trans. Erik Butler. Verso Books, 2017.
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Enamored of fluidity?
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Absolutely, it’s that. Comfortable with constant change, movement, choice. Sees everything as an exchange, a trade, a competition.
This is neither good nor bad. I’m not condemning anybody with this poll. We are all at different stages of this journey and I’m more neoliberalized than many whether I want it or not.
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I am nowhere. 🙂 Had difficulty to choose in three cases, so chose two options at one (consecutive numbers each time), so the end result looks like:
Number ONE = 4-5 times
Number TWO = 4-6 times
Number THREE = 4-6 times
Number FOUR = 1-2 times
Some questions naturally are US specific, like the expression “pushing the boundaries” which I haven’t heard before.
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Very special cookies are category 2. 🙂
I have only one 2 with several 3s and one 4. The rest are 1s.
As everybody can see, I’m very honest about my own irredeemable neoliberalization.
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Duty is inextricably linked to freedom.
Most of the answers were like that except the “ugh this is stupid, you are asking the wrong questions” answers. Which means that just by starting taking this quiz, I am let myself participate more with clownworld. Heh.
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I should have asked the question of “Do you use the word ‘clownworld'” for the 4th category. 🙂
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Nice quiz. I’m between 1 and 2 which fits well.
I was comparing 1 and 2s and it seems that 2s try to control everything and feel responsible for everything while 1s accept that there are factors in life which are outside of their control. Is that the main difference? It makes sense that in order to be fine with constant change and fluidity a certain amount of fatalism is necessary. I would not have thought a successful neoliberal mindset is linked to fatalism but probably it has to be. I have a friend who experienced big upheaval in his childhood (their land and houses were taken in a war and they could never return) and he had a very fatalistic, calm, relaxed outlook in life while at the same time working very hard for the things he was really enthusiastic about. He’s had a super successful life, really taking advantage of fluidity.
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My results (neoliberal self-diagnosis)
1 – 2
2 – 8
3 – 5
4 – 1
It’s interesting how much 3 corresponds with a lack of money…
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People who consciously refuse to play the neoliberal game are economically dispossessed in neoliberalism. No playing means no reward.
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“economically dispossessed in neoliberalism. No playing means no reward”
Yeah, I realized many years ago that money just isn’t that big a motivator for me…
On work life balance, a colleague and I were recently asked about our willingness to take part in a teaching project that would involve a lot of extra work (not all paid). The colleague said (paraphrasing) “not really, I have a life, I teach all week and don’t want to spend all weekend stuck in front of a screen” which summed up my own feelings pretty well… I love teaching in person and live on the computer (not really, but… sort of?) but wouldn’t mind never having an online class (or online work-related meeting) ever again.
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Heh. Nine 3s and five 4s.
Not sure about the mental illness question. I think it’s stigmatized for a damn good reason, and that reason is that most of us don’t like dealing with crazy people.
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Speaking of clienworld and its intersection with the Academy, it turns out Shakespeare’s quip was off. First thing is the managers
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/the-managerial-menace?publication_id=268621&utm_campaign=email-post-title&r=kiqe7
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*clownworld
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I got interrupted by customers a bunch while attempting to take this quiz, so I’m spiritually a 4 even if my actual results don’t indicate it.
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1- 4 times
2- 3 times, one of them for news on Facebook… seems I managed to somehow make my Facebook confused about my preferences and therefore balanced 🙂
3- 8, on money I topic – I have enough, because I make a decent money and do not have an expectation that all financial problems have to be resolved immediately. “Economy is shit” is the only statement I fully agree with there, even though I do have enough. And on personal development courses – I did not count therapy.
4-1
Should I feel exhilaration about changing my job from the “senior priest in the temple of wokeness” to something else? 🙂 🙂
valter07
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Hah, interesting quiz
When I think about changing my profession or occupation to a completely new one, it feels
1 – exhilarating – I like my current career but there’s a tension there that won’t last all my working life. Haven’t quite reached the exhilarating part yet, but it’ll happen
How many apps do you use to track and enhance your productivity?
3 – none – I’ve spent too much money on psychotherapists to have that sort of BDSM relationship with myself.
Do you agree that traveling is one of the most important things in life?
2 – it is very important to be able to travel – I’m a mountaineer living a night’s train ride away from the mountains because my love has tenure in this town. If the night train gets cancelled, I will murder a bitch.
How do you feel about the expression “pushing the boundaries”?
3 – negative – corporateeeeese lol
What is more important, duty or freedom?
1 – duty but only if you freely chose it – they’re two faces of the same moebius strip
What are you most scared of from the following list:
1 – chronic illness – because it’ll get me in the end, in the form of old age if nothing else, and I hate feeling trapped
Do you agree that it’s crucial to have children to continue your bloodline?
2 – one of those none kind of things, all of these feel like an alien way of relating to children but I’m not going to have any
Mental illness is unfairly stigmatized
1 – nobody can stigmatize you if you haven’t chosen to be stigmatized – life’s too short to care that much what other people think, and this is something I also believed in my mentally ill twenties
I help my children do their homework (or would help if I had them)
1 – there is homework? How quaint
I don’t have enough money because
2 – I spend it all on an obsession I’ll maybe understand 10 years later (this is how it usually goes) and which is giving me a better ROI than therapy.
How many personal development courses have you taken in this calendar year?
1 – two or three – I’m counting the various mountaineering/climbing skills stuff as personal development here, even though this is, once again, corporatese.
Do you (or would you) read books on child-rearing?
2 – yes, when I’m processing trauma
Where do you get most of your news?
4 – I’m too busy for the news
What are your most used apps?
2 – various 1:1 messenger apps, map/weather apps
Work/life balance is important
3 – no, one is much more important than the other
You find yourself having to take care of an elderly relative you don’t much like, and you think…
2 – another special snowflake situation I don’t quite want to put into words
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