Neoliberalism thrives on idiotism—the enclosure of the self, severing people from collective life. Historically, idiot meant disengagement, but under capitalism, it became an insult. Leftist language must resist this by rooting itself in real communities of practice, rebuilding speech communities, and reclaiming political meaning from ideological enclosure.
The term
idiotism is not widely used in contemporary political discourse, but it should be. As the current series of articles undertakes an exploration of how leftist vocabulary has been enclosed, diluted, and detached from lived communal structures,
idiotism provides a crucial conceptual tool to explain how this process occurs—not just in language but in subjectivity itself.
Derived from the Greek
idiōtēs, meaning a private person disengaged from public life,
idiotism describes a condition in which individuals are severed from collective participation and locked into isolated, self-referential modes of thought and action. Historically, this was understood as a lack of civic engagement, a retreat from the responsibilities of the
polis. Today, under neoliberalism, it is a
structural condition, cultivated through market ideology, digital enclosures, and the fragmentation of public discourse.
This article explores the etymology and historical transformations of
idiotism, its relevance to contemporary hegemonic individualism, and how it manifests in leftist discourse—particularly in the weakening of communal language and action. By reconnecting
idiotism to broader discussions of
possessive individualism,
capitalist enclosure, and
schmooze-level social reality, we can begin to chart a way forward.
1. Idiotism and Its Classical Roots
The modern word
idiot traces back to the Greek
idiōtēs (ἰδιώτης), which referred to someone who was not engaged in public affairs. Unlike the
politēs (πολίτης), the active citizen who took part in collective decision-making, the
idiōtēs lived in a privatized sphere, disconnected from the deliberative structures of the community. The term was not initially an insult but described a condition of civic disconnection.
This meaning shifted over time. In Latin and later medieval vernaculars,
idiota came to mean an uneducated or ignorant person. By the time it entered English,
idiot was fully synonymous with stupidity, losing its original political meaning. What was once a critique of disengagement became a medicalized and moralized insult.
This semantic drift was not accidental. As capitalist social orders developed,
the political meaning of idiocy was lost precisely because capitalist hegemony required a population more preoccupied with private affairs than with collective governance. The transition from
idiōtēs to “idiot” mirrors the rise of
possessive individualism, in which self-interest replaces social obligation as the organizing principle of society.
2. Neal Curtis’ Idiotism: The Neoliberal Subject as Enclosed Self
Neal Curtis’ book
Idiotism: Capitalism and the Privatisation of Life resurrects the term to describe how neoliberalism systematically cultivates self-enclosure. According to Curtis, capitalism not only dismantles communal infrastructures but actively reshapes subjectivity to make social alienation appear natural. Under neoliberalism, the ideal subject is an
idiot—not in the sense of stupidity, but as someone locked into self-referential survival, disengaged from collective transformation.
Curtis argues that
idiotism is not just an ideology but a
structural condition, reinforced by:
- The destruction of public goods and common spaces.
- The ideological promotion of market competition over cooperation.
- The internalization of economic precarity, leading to a mindset of individualized struggle.
- The collapse of deliberative structures, making civic engagement feel futile or meaningless.
In this sense,
idiotism is
capitalism’s epistemic enclosure of the self, preventing people from recognizing their embeddedness in communal life. This process mirrors the semantic enclosure of leftist language—turning concepts like
mutual aid into acts of charity rather than reciprocal obligation, or
solidarity into an abstract virtue rather than an active structure of collective power.
3. Idiotism and the Limits of Leftist Language
Leftist language itself is not immune to
idiotism. If neoliberalism produces enclosed selves, it also shapes the way political movements articulate their demands. Some key ways this manifests include:
- The Performance of Engagement Without Engagement – Leftist discourse is often performative, with radical rhetoric substituting for real structures of communal obligation. If language does not connect to real communities of practice, it remains self-referential, a form of idiotism in itself.
- The Fragmentation of Speech Communities – Digital spaces encourage ideological filtering, where leftist language becomes an in-group dialect rather than a tool of broad political engagement. Idiotism thrives where language ceases to be generative and instead reinforces static moral positioning.
- The Weakening of Collective Identity – In a world dominated by neoliberal atomization, even leftist movements struggle to construct enduring communal structures. Language that once mobilized collective agency now often serves as a personal branding tool—politics as aesthetic rather than as practice.
This diagnosis is not meant to be fatalistic. Recognizing
idiotism within leftist discourse allows us to counteract it. The solution is not simply more rhetoric but a reconnection of language to
lived, reciprocal relationships within real communities of practice.
4. Reclaiming Language, Rebuilding Collective Consciousness
If
idiotism describes a condition of enclosure, the counter to it must be a
deliberate reinvestment in communal structures of speech and action. Some key ways forward include:
- Embedding Language in Speech Communities – Leftist vocabulary must emerge from and be sustained by active communities, rather than functioning as a floating signifier in online discourse.
- Developing Communal Practices Alongside Communal Language – Political terminology should be grounded in real, material relationships—worker cooperatives, mutual aid networks, neighborhood assemblies—where meaning is not just asserted but enacted.
- Resisting the Enclosure of Radical Terms – Just as mutual aid must be reclaimed from its depoliticization into charity, other terms must be defended from ideological dilution and misappropriation.
- Expanding the Schmooze-Level Social Reality of Politics – A truly collective politics must restore dialogic interaction as a foundation for meaning-making, countering the passive consumption of political content.
Conclusion: Beyond Idiotism
Neoliberalism thrives on
idiotism—the enclosure of the self, the collapse of communal meaning, and the severing of language from lived social reality. If leftist discourse is to remain viable, it must resist both
semantic drift and social fragmentation, restoring political language to a
living practice within interconnected communities.
The question is not merely how we critique
idiotism, but how we cultivate its opposite:
a world where no one is an idiōtēs because all are engaged in the ongoing, reciprocal construction of communal life. The first step is to ensure that our words, like our actions, move us toward this reality.
