Inevitabilist rhetoric frames political choices as unopposable historical necessities

Evidence

Now the proselytizers of ubiquitous computing join Marx and other modern utopianists in postulating a new phase of history, like Paradiso’s “revolutionary phase shift,” in which all of society is reassembled in a novel and superior pattern. Despite the fact that inevitability is the opposite of politics and history, apostles of the apparatus routinely hijack historical metaphors that lend a veneer of gravitas to their claims. The rise of the apparatus is alternatively cast as the inauguration of a new “age,” “era,” “wave,” “phase,” or “stage.” This kind of historical framing conveys the futility of opposition to the categorical inevitability of the march toward ubiquity. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 693

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘inevitabilism’ as a rhetorical stance that borrows historical-teleology metaphors to disarm political opposition.
• XREF: Connects to Marx’s own ‘grave-diggers’ inevitabilism quoted two paragraphs earlier; Zuboff is building a genealogy of inevitabilist rhetoric. — connects to: Inevitability rhetoric is a fraud that disables resistance to power — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 704; Inevitability rhetoric erases the fingerprints of actual power holders — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 703; Contingency of historical conjunctures is a precondition for political possibility (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Inevitability rhetoric is a fraud that disables resistance to power #corroborates (0.82) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 704
• Inevitability rhetoric erases the fingerprints of actual power holders #expands (0.82) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 703
• Historical inevitability claims overreach; the past never dictates the future #corroborates (0.73)
• Contingency of historical conjunctures is a precondition for political possibility #corroborates (0.72)