On Political Impasse: Power, Resistance, and New Forms of Selfhood

Description

Power is classically understood as the playing out of relations between the ruler and the ruled. Political impasse is often viewed as a moment in which no clear-cut delineation of power exists, resulting in an overwhelming sense of frustration or feeling stuck in a no-win situation. The new globalised world has produced a real shift in how power works: not only has power been concentrated in the hands of very few while many millions become more oppressed by radical shortages and growing costs, but we also have a new category of political subjectivity in which many find themselves neither rulers nor radically oppressed. Those who live the neither/nor of contemporary power live the new global impasse. For those of us who are stuck and compelled to wait for dominant power to break, this book uncovers possibilities in thought, imagination, and self-appropriation through oikeiosis, that is, making oneself at home in oneself, and constancy. Cover Contents Acknowledgments Thesis Preface 1 The New Impasse Deeper Conditions of the Contemporary Impasse: The Fatigue of Forms of Change and the Rise of a New Form of Political Impasse 2 The Inscription of the Ruler–Ruled Power Relation in Political Thought and the Obscuring of Impasse Badiou, Foucault, Deleuze, and Esposito: In Between the Ruler–Ruled Relation of Political Power? Alain Badiou on the Event, and the Possibility and Impossibility of Impasse Foucault, Resistance, Subjectivation, and the Overcoming of a Temporary Impasse Gilles Deleuze and the Impasse of the Societies of Control Roberto Esposito, Impasse, and the Immunological Paradigm of Political Life Resistance in Immunity: Life, Person, and the Impersonal As Long as There Is Life, There Is Hope and the Possibility of Resistance? Possibility in the New Political Impasse 3 Impasse and the Recovery and Transformation of Selfhood Recovery of a Zone of Selfhood That Is Our Own: Oikeiosis The Emergence of World, the Inner, and Auto-Affection The Manifestation of a World from Within Auto-Affection: The Opening onto the Inner Life Self-Becoming: To Feel and Live Oneself Anew? Thinking How Does Thinking Affect Political Impasse? Imagination Judgment Willing Newness and the Inner Turn Communifying Possibility and Hope The Experience of the Initial Possibility of Freedom Dilating the Time of Impasse from Within The Possible Present: A Threshold The Time of Being-Held in Being and the Giving of Time Lingering and Security in Being: A Dialectical Relationship? Conclusion: On Possible New Forms of Selfhood Notes Bibliography Index