Just Some Write-Ups

This paper was originally presented at the 14th DLSU Arts Congress, held online on March 11 and 12, 2021. It was subsequently published in the same conference's proceedings . * * * I. Neoliberalism and Anti-Politics One of the more famous quotes attributed to British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, stated during an interview she gave with Woman’s Own magazine in 1987, goes like this: “There is no such thing [as society]! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first” (Keay, 1987). Earlier in the decade, and barely two years after she ascended to the aforementioned office in May 1979, a newly elected world leader across the pond uttered words of a similar tenor during his inaugural address on January 20th, 1981. President Ronald Reagan’s words would go on to become a credo of sorts among fiscally conservative circles for decades to come: “Government is not the solution to our pr...