Control society replaces discipline with entrepreneurial self-direction

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: This contrasts the closed milieus of confinement in Foucault/Deleuze’s disciplinary society with networked production, echoing Han’s broader claim that psychopolitics supersedes biopolitics. Connects to the later sections of this same reading project on self-exploitation and achievement-subject. — connects to: Open communications plus weakened authority favor improvisational millenarian entrepreneurs — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic…, 151; In Brick Lane entrepreneurial individualism replaces community as the route to autonomy — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 148; Behavioral engineered self-control masks society’s ultimate control over individuals — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1386 (+11 more)
• DEFINE: Defines the mole-versus-snake distinction as the passage from disciplinary to control society.

Related

• Control society replaced confinement with self-created open space (similarity 0.89)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalism replaces exchange-based self-interest with self-entrepreneurship #expands (0.85) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 199
• Entrepreneurship became a generalized ideal pervading personal identity and relationships #expands (0.82)
• Behavioral engineered self-control masks society’s ultimate control over individuals #qualifies (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1386
• Freedom from control paradoxically requires an inner self disciplined in specific ways. #qualifies (0.80) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 353
• Entrepreneurship became a generalized ideal of selfhood, not just a career path #expands (0.80) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 17
• In Brick Lane entrepreneurial individualism replaces community as the route to autonomy #exemplifies (0.78) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 148
• Successful socialization replaces external control with internal self-sanctions. #qualifies (0.78) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 69
• Control by feedback has replaced centralized external power in late capitalism #expands (0.78) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 99
• Neoliberal self-entrepreneurship destabilizes the fixed boundaries of personhood #expands (0.76) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 418
• Control society replaced confinement with self-created open space #expands (0.75) — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 51
• Self-control is maintained socially, through others, not only individually #qualifies (0.75) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 331
• Rational productivity and social control are welded together in new forms of manipulation #corroborates (0.74) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 551
• Disciplinary power produces individuality rather than merely restricting it from outside #complicates (0.73)