For the love of love: neoliberal governmentality, neoliberal melancholy, critical intersectionality, and the advent of solidarity with the other Mormons

Abstract

This article performs critical intellectual labor for social and political change against neoliberalism in three ways. First, it explores and connects neoliberal governmentality and neoliberal melancholy, two anchor experiences in our twenty-first century political quotidian. Second, it engages in the sense making of Proposition 8 (a California voter initiative to ban same-sex marriage, which was narrowly passed in 2008) as a case study of religious organizations (the Mormon Church and their religious allies) and their complicity with neoliberal states to foster subjection and subjectivation through critical intersectionality that goes beyond the identity trinity of race, class, and gender. Finally, the article suggests two technologies as a new hand to outplay the excess of neoliberalism for the triumph of our common humanity: 1) mourning over the devastation brought about by neoliberalism and 2) loving our love for those with whom we usually do not form affinity connections, such as the other Mormons, those who are othered because of their departure from church orthodoxy.