El sujeto feliz: la función política de la retórica de la felicidad en el México contemporáneo

The Happy Subject: The Political Function of the Rhetoric of Happiness in Contemporary Mexico

Abstract

The happiness of the Mexican people was a recurring theme in López Obrador’s presidential speech (2018-2024). What it means to be happy and how to achieve it seemed to be one of the main concerns of the last president of Mexico, who maintained that the purpose of the State is to ensure happiness and the well-being of the soul. This article examines the political function of the rhetoric of happiness through an analysis of López Obrador’s presidential speech. It thus inscribes Obrador’s discourse in a broader sociopolitical framework—in what Sarah Ahmed called “the turn to happiness”—and draws on the thinking of the Ljubljana Psychoanalytic School, in particular that of Alenka Zupančič, to explain the mechanism at work in said discourse and to deepen the understanding of its effects in the public sphere. In this process, the rhetoric of happiness, as used by López Obrador, is revealed to be conservative, in that it seeks to legitimize the status quo and disqualify critical voices against his movement. The article leaves open the question of whether it is possible to subvert the conservative logic of the discourse of happiness and redefine it in the construction of an emancipatory political project.