Posthumanism for Solidarity Beyond Politics of Disgust

This study examines the politics of disgust facing contemporary democracy and the possibility of solidarity as its alternative from a posthumanist perspective. It demonstrates that the issues of disgust and solidarity extend beyond mere human emotions or political cooperation, encompassing complex sociopolitical implications, while critically examining the fundamental limitations of the autonomous subject concept presupposed by humanism. Recent neuroscientific findings reveal that brain plasticity operates in close conjunction with sociocultural practices, and the neurobiological mechanisms of affect are continuously reconstructed within sociopolitical contexts. This suggests that disgust is not an inevitable universal phenomenon but rather a component of brain plasticity, and the biological possibility of solidarity should also be understood in terms of the complexity of brain plasticity. The study concludes that within the posthumanist paradigm, genuine solidarity must be reconstructed at the point of actively affirming difference, discord, and the (im)possibility of disgust, and that this transition is an imperative task directly linked to the survival of contemporary democracy.