Events are reversals of power that inaugurate wholly new states of affairs

Evidence

Following Nietzsche’s lead, Foucault also advances a conception of history that ‘deals with events in terms of their most unique characteristics, their most acute manifestations’. ‘Event’, for Foucault, means ‘the reversal of a relationship of forces, the usurpation of power, the appropriation of a vocabulary against those who had once used it’. When an event occurs, one suddenly speaks another language. It entails a break with all certainty that has held until now inasmuch as it calls to life a wholly different constellation of Being. Events are turns (Kehren), where a reversal – an overthrow – of domination occurs. The event means that something takes place – something that was wholly absent from conditions beforehand. — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 178

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the earlier claim ‘Big Data is blind to the singular event that actually shapes history’ — this passage defines what sort of event that earlier claim concerned. — connects to: Big Data is blind to the singular event that actually shapes history — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New…, 176; An event needs change over time to become real in the present — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 114; Protest events alone do not change anything without ongoing political organization

Related

• An event needs change over time to become real in the present (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• An event needs change over time to become real in the present #complicates (0.75) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 114