Oral Presentation by Margarita Coosemans¹
¹ Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
TIME: Tuesday, 14 July, 14:30 – 16:00
Location: Room 1
Session: 5
Abstract
This research aims to understand the mechanism of acceptance of the capitalist system as society’s natural state. Despite vast inequalities, widespread consent persists with minimal coercion. The project addresses these research questions: What mechanism explains conformism/submission to hegemonic common sense and why some resist? Can we identify the (collective) unconscious mechanisms that prevail in conforming vs resisting? The theoretical framework synthesises discourse theory with analytical psychology (Jung’s collective unconscious and archetypes). “Consent without consent” refers to covert control where acceptance is manufactured through forces limiting alternatives, drawing from Gramsci, Chomsky, and Foucault. These forces may activate certain archetypes. Firstly, they may prevent shadow integration. Internalizing the neoclassical narrative represses guilt over inequality and normalizes it by denoting the poor as “lazy” and investors as “virtuous”. This prevents shadow integration, ensuring no cognitive dissonance. Secondly, the currently dominant narrative may activate specific archetypes for the majority. Through history and space such narratives could have been completely different (e.g. the USSR vs the advanced capitalist societies in the West). Comparing the UK and Russia, we may see how different narratives activate different archetypes and how outliers/non-conformists develop in each system. The research employs mixed methods combining quantitative text analysis and qualitative case studies. The first part is a web-scraping mechanism on historical newspaper archives, biographies, memorandums. Sources include British Newspaper Archives from the 1700s and East View Russian Periodical Database for newspapers before/after 1917, during the Soviet era, and afterwards. Quantitative text analysis using TF-IDF and/or neural embedding will identify important words in business versus labour press and in accounts of capitalism versus socialism defenders. I will analyse whether these words identify with certain collective unconscious patterns. Qualitative case studies will complement quantitative findings, identifying archetypal mechanisms linking to conformism versus resistance. We will examine status quo acceptance in pre-, Soviet and post-Soviet Russia versus the UK. For historical outliers’ analysis, we will examine accounts of supporters and resisters, assessing similarity of their activated archetypes and shadow integration extent.