In sovereign narratives, emancipation and killing are bound to truth and death
Evidence
Just as with Hegel, the narrative of mastery and emancipation here is clearly linked to a narrative of truth and death. Terror and killing become the means of realizing the already known telos of history. — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 56
Categorization
- DEFINE: This crystallizes the Hegelian-Marxian link: mastery/emancipation as a fight to the death fused with a claim of truth-telos — a key lever for understanding necropolitical sovereignty.
- XREF: connects to: Sovereign power makes the subject’s very life and death depend on its will — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 255; Ritualized death faded because death escaped sovereign power’s reach — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 262; Monotheistic sacred narratives ground colonial sovereignty and identity against the Other. — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 99 (+3 more)
Related
- Ritualized death faded because death escaped sovereign power’s reach (similarity 0.81)
- Nineteenth-century power added ‘make live and let die’ alongside sovereign right to kill (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Sovereign power makes the subject’s very life and death depend on its will
#expands(0.90) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 255 - Sovereign power over life is asymmetrical, always weighted toward killing
#expands(0.85) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 255 - Monotheistic sacred narratives ground colonial sovereignty and identity against the Other.
#exemplifies(0.80) — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 99 - Nineteenth-century power added ‘make live and let die’ alongside sovereign right to kill
#complicates(0.80) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 256 - Ritualized death faded because death escaped sovereign power’s reach
#complicates(0.75) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 262 - Conquest founds legitimate sovereignty because the defeated prefer life to death
#exemplifies(0.75) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 111