Introduction: The Failed IndividualSusanne Hamscha, Katharina Motyl, and Regina Schober"If there is one thing in this world that I hate, it's losers. I despise them," then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared to a group of high school students, expressing a firm belief in success and failure as the results of individual action and ambition (cf. Halberstam 2011, 5). Himself embodying the American Dream as an immigrant who "made it big in America," Schwarzenegger demeaned the worth of individuals he perceived to be "losers," and thus echoed an attitude prevalent in contemporary Western neoliberal politics that glorifies success as the only valuable way of being in the world and as the ultimate goal of one's existence. Those who fail, the cultural myth goes, lack the determination and the will to work harder, run faster, and jump higher than those who succeed. This crude simplification of success and failure veils the fact that "winning" and "losing" do not merely depend on individual action or choice, but are actually enabled by an intricate web of power dynamics and regulatory regimes. Yet, the media strategy that the 45th U.S. president Donald J. Trump deployed during the 2016 GOP primaries and general election campaign attests to the political and cultural purchase that the winner- vs. loser-narrative holds for a significant part of the U.S. populace: a critical analysis of Trump's tweets and campaign speeches reveals that he leveled the term loser at anyone who had dared critique him (the list includes political opponents such as Ted Cruz, media outlets such as The Huffington Post, and public personae such as Rosie O'Donnell), which from a constructivist perspective attests to the contingent nature of the success/failure-binary. Yet, many of his voters apparently bought into his self-stylization as a successful businessman, who had the right to demean others as "losers," the ultimate proof of the latters' failure being their diminutive wealth when compared to Trump's vast fortune.The significance of the individual in the political culture and value sys-tem of the United States is historically and globally unparalleled. It is hardly surprising that the nation whose master narrative, the American Dream, professes a belief in the power of individual agency should have developed one of the most neoliberal economic orders in the world. However, the belief in the nexus of ambition and success entails that those who fail are seen as responsible for their lot-they must not have worked hard enough, the logic goes. This view, of course, obscures that a set of social structures, hegemonic norms, and discursive strategies influences whether an individual will attain success or fail, or even be defined as a winner or a loser. But the economic is merely one stage on which individuals may fail, since failure, which originally meant breaking in business, came to signify a deficient self as capitalism developed over the course of the nineteenth century, thus becoming an identity (Sandage 2005, 10-17).This book aims at scrutinizing the many ways in which individuals fail economically, politically, socially, physically, or culturally, as well as the often contradictory discourses that have arisen around individual failure. It thus provides revealing insights into the power of hegemonic structures and discourses and the pressure to meet normative ideals, the various hu-man and non-human actors involved in what we usually consider "human failure," but also into the productive potential and the pleasures failure has to offer. The volume is testimony to and part of an emerging interest in failure in both media and academic discourses, reflecting a growing unease many of us feel in view of the pressures and cost of our performance culture. Recent years have seen an increase in attempts to demystify the taboo and stigma attached to individual failure. Most noticeably, perhaps,American entrepreneurial culture started celebrating business
Introduction: The Failed IndividualSusanne Hamscha, Katharina Motyl, and Regina Schober"If there is one thing in this world that I hate, it's losers. I despise them," then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared to a group of high school students, expressing a firm belief in success and failure as the results of individual action and ambition (cf. Halberstam 2011, 5). Himself embodying the American Dream as an immigrant who "made it big in America," Schwarzenegger demeaned the worth of individuals he perceived to be "losers," and thus echoed an attitude prevalent in contemporary Western neoliberal politics that glorifies success as the only valuable way of being in the world and as the ultimate goal of one's existence. Those who fail, the cultural myth goes, lack the determination and the will to work harder, run faster, and jump higher than those who succeed. This crude simplification of success and failure veils the fact that "winning" and "losing" do not merely depend on individual action or choice, but are actually enabled by an intricate web of power dynamics and regulatory regimes. Yet, the media strategy that the 45th U.S. president Donald J. Trump deployed during the 2016 GOP primaries and general election campaign attests to the political and cultural purchase that the winner- vs. loser-narrative holds for a significant part of the U.S. populace: a critical analysis of Trump's tweets and campaign speeches reveals that he leveled the term loser at anyone who had dared critique him (the list includes political opponents such as Ted Cruz, media outlets such as The Huffington Post, and public personae such as Rosie O'Donnell), which from a constructivist perspective attests to the contingent nature of the success/failure-binary. Yet, many of his voters apparently bought into his self-stylization as a successful businessman, who had the right to demean others as "losers," the ultimate proof of the latters' failure being their diminutive wealth when compared to Trump's vast fortune.The significance of the individual in the political culture and value sys-tem of the United States is historically and globally unparalleled. It is hardly surprising that the nation whose master narrative, the American Dream, professes a belief in the power of individual agency should have developed one of the most neoliberal economic orders in the world. However, the belief in the nexus of ambition and success entails that those who fail are seen as responsible for their lot-they must not have worked hard enough, the logic goes. This view, of course, obscures that a set of social structures, hegemonic norms, and discursive strategies influences whether an individual will attain success or fail, or even be defined as a winner or a loser. But the economic is merely one stage on which individuals may fail, since failure, which originally meant breaking in business, came to signify a deficient self as capitalism developed over the course of the nineteenth century, thus becoming an identity (Sandage 2005, 10-17).This book aims at scrutinizing the many ways in which individuals fail economically, politically, socially, physically, or culturally, as well as the often contradictory discourses that have arisen around individual failure. It thus provides revealing insights into the power of hegemonic structures and discourses and the pressure to meet normative ideals, the various hu-man and non-human actors involved in what we usually consider "human failure," but also into the productive potential and the pleasures failure has to offer. The volume is testimony to and part of an emerging interest in failure in both media and academic discourses, reflecting a growing unease many of us feel in view of the pressures and cost of our performance culture. Recent years have seen an increase in attempts to demystify the taboo and stigma attached to individual failure. Most noticeably, perhaps,American entrepreneurial culture started celebrating business
