Martijn Konings has pointed out that the dark underbelly of the bright shiny neoliberal self is the daily spectacle of the public put-down. Not only must the truly entrepreneurial life embrace the risk and insecurity of a constantly revised self tossed hither and yon by market forces beyond our ken; the fundamental narcissism encouraged by neoliberalism demands that we participate in an active externalization of the experience of insecurity and vulnerability to revaluation. The complement to a culture of celebrity has become therefore the unabashed theater of cruelty, the public spaces where we gaze upon the half-speed car wrecks of the lives of others in the throes of failure, Nascar for the politically challenged.

Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis …, loc. 372