<p>This paper attempts to capture a new conceptual direction around the understanding of the neoliberal subject by decoding two existing –but also converging– conceptions of self-consciousness as a cultural practice. The analytic of the neoliberal subject reveals that its psycho-social foundations are related to a permanent state of insecurity and uncertainty that is intensified through performance. The notion of “performance” feeds “pleasure” within a narcissistic framework that renders the subject extremely governable. The above schema is rendered by the term “politics of discomfort” to describe the dead-end state of being embedded in a new power grid that shapes and cultivates a “culture of narcissism”, thus aiming at a new ethics of responsibility and efficiency.</p>