Contemporary power increasingly operates through permissiveness rather than prohibition.
Evidence
To be sure, power can express itself as violence or repression. But it is not based on force. Power need not exclude, prohibit or censor. Not does it stand opposed to freedom. Indeed, power can even use freedom to its own ends. Only in its negative form does power manifest itself as a violence that says ‘no’ by shattering the will and annulling freedom. Today, power is assuming increasingly permissive forms. In its permissivity – indeed, in its friendliness – power is shedding its negativity and presenting itself as freedom. — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 43
Categorization
- DEFINE: Distinguishes negative (prohibitive) from permissive forms of power, keying the chapter’s core distinction.
- XREF: connects to: Disciplinary power produces individuals rather than suppressing them. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 264; Power creates freedom, not the other way around. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The…, 273; Modern governmentality rules populations at a distance rather than by command. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 223 (+1 more)
Related
- Power grows stronger the less visible it is (similarity 0.80)
- Disciplines replaced extractive violence with a productive, non-forceful economy of power. (similarity 0.79)
- Modern power gained force by moving from brute architecture to the subject’s own perception (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Modern governmentality rules populations at a distance rather than by command.
#expands(0.82) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 223 - Disciplinary power produces individuals rather than suppressing them.
#expands(0.80) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 264 - Power creates freedom, not the other way around.
#corroborates(0.78) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 273 - Repressive power operates by forcing expression, not by silencing it.
#corroborates(0.72) — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 190