Diffuse distributed power models undermine the possibility of political action

Evidence

Immanence evacuates politics: “Power is no longer concentrated in one point in the world; it is the world itself, its flows and avenues,” the Invisible Committee intones, and thus any action expedites flow. Philosopher Roberto Esposito outlines the restless negativity of antipolitics vis-à-vis official exercises of power with his notion of the “impolitical”: “Politics cannot be conceptualized in positive form but only on the basis of that which draws its contours at its outer margin and which determines it negatively, constituting both its ground and its reverse side.” Negativity as end in itself animates gender theorist Jack Halberstam’s “anti-political project of unmaking.” — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 317

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Esposito’s ‘impolitical’ as negative-only conceptualization and names the Invisible Committee’s ‘flow’ theodicy and Halberstam’s ‘unmaking.’