Control society replaced confinement with self-created open space

Evidence

In his ‘Postscript on the Societies of Control’, Deleuze diagnoses a general crisis affecting all milieus of confinement. Their closedness and rigidity pose a problem: they are no longer suited to post-industrial, immaterial and networked forms of production. The latter push for more openness by breaking borders down. But the mole cannot bear such openness. Accordingly, the snake takes the mole’s place. The snake is the animal of neoliberal control society, to which disciplinary society has yielded. In contrast to the mole, the snake does not move in closed spaces. Rather, it makes space by means of its own movement. The mole is a labourer. In contrast, the snake is an entrepreneur. The snake is the animal of the neoliberal regime. — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 51

Categorization

• XREF: Builds on Han’s mole-versus-snake extension of Deleuze’s essay, which also frames later chapters on self-exploitation and freedom. — connects to: Neoliberalism is a capitalism of Like rather than of prohibition — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New…, 48; Control societies replace external surveillance with internalized self-policing — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 48; Behavioral engineered self-control masks society’s ultimate control over individuals — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1386 (+6 more)
• DEFINE: Clarifies Deleuze’s mole/snake distinction as Han applies it to the shift from disciplinary to neoliberal control society.
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source

Related

• Control society replaces discipline with entrepreneurial self-direction (similarity 0.89)
• Openness replaces confinement as a productivity enhancer under capitalism (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Behavioral engineered self-control masks society’s ultimate control over individuals #corroborates (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1386
• Openness replaces confinement as a productivity enhancer under capitalism #corroborates (0.85) — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 52
• Control societies replace external surveillance with internalized self-policing #corroborates (0.80) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 48
• The system’s celebrated freedoms function as instruments of domination #corroborates (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 45
• Under postindustrial capitalism, increased freedom and abundance produce more sophisticated social control #corroborates (0.72) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 216
• Modern state power replaced personal command with measured, diffused control over bodies and space #corroborates (0.70) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 542