“It’s Like a Fairytale, Really”: Capitalist Fantasy, Postplanetary Rhetoric, and the New Space Race

Rhetoric Society Quarterly Aug 2023

“It’s Like a Fairytale, Really”: Capitalist Fantasy, Postplanetary Rhetoric, and the New Space Race

James Rushing Daniel Archer Daniels Midland (United States)

Abstract

Recently, a private space race has emerged, helmed by some of the world’s wealthiest figures. These space entrepreneurs, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk most prominently, have framed the new space race as preparation for the permanent emancipation of humans from Earth. Brad Tabas terms this project the “post-planetary.” In this essay, I analyze postplanetary rhetoric through Todd McGowan’s theorization of fantasy, arguing that the discourse gains assent through operationalizing fantasies of abundance and relegating Earth to a lost cause. In charting the structure of this discourse, I seek to promote further disciplinary attention to fantasy for its capacity to illuminate how contemporary discourses of entrepreneurship and innovation perpetuate capitalism’s hegemony by cultivating consumers’ desires for plenty. I also seek to showcase how a rhetorical approach to fantasy both attends to capitalism’s abortive repression of its contradictions and reveals how the repressed Real of capitalist violence haunts the entrepreneurial scene.

Journal: Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published: 2023-08-08
DOI: 10.1080/02773945.2023.2175024
Open Access: Closed
Topics: race and writing

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Cites in this index (1)

Johnson et al. (2013)

The Lacanian Real as a Productive Supplement to Rhetorical Critique

Rhetoric Society Quarterly

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