The Master's Thesis explores and analyzes connection between neoliberal ideology and its integration into society in relation to an individual. In the theoretical part, neoliberalism is defined as an ideological and political-economic concept that limits an individual to a consumer, and then through the historical course of neo-liberalism, it is explained to the reader how neoliberalism has occupied the status quo both in society and in the opinion of individuals. Deriving from Foucault’s concept of governmentality, the work focuses on the connection between technologies of government and technologies of the self, whereby, through the exploration of the concepts of individualization, subjectivity and self-actualization, it outlines the individual to which the burden of neoliberalism falls. On the side of neoliberalism, it sets self-help and self-help literature, which speaks of people's distress and, in exchange for payment, offers a universal recipe that ignores any social inequalities, but reminds the individual that he/she is the one who has to change. Through the analysis of two self-help manuals, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne and You can heal your life by Louise L. Hay, the work illustrates how the government passes to the subject and how the imperatives of neoliberalism (freedom, choice and own responsibility) are at the same time cornerstone for self-help, which also sees social problems only as a consequence of the inaction or malfeasance of the individual, and with the obscurity of reality preserves the social status quo, and sees the individual as the one who is responsible for all, while self-help actually creates or deepens feeling of distress, anxiety and guilt, that it allegedly attempts to eliminate.
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