Instrumentarian power transforms the market into a project of total certainty, unlike totalitarian possession

Evidence

I argue that instrumentarianism is an unprecedented species of power that has defied comprehension in part because it has been subjected to the “horseless-carriage” syndrome. Instrumentarian power has been viewed through the old lenses of totalitarianism, obscuring what is different and dangerous. Totalitarianism was a transformation of the state into a project of total possession. Instrumentarianism and its materialization in Big Other signal the transformation of the market into a project of total certainty, an undertaking that is unimaginable outside the digital milieu and the logic of surveillance capitalism. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 71

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘instrumentarian power’ and ‘Big Other’ as new species of power distinguished from totalitarianism by their aim: total certainty rather than total possession.
• XREF: The horseless-carriage/syndrome point that new technologies get misread through old categories parallels critiques of seeing surveillance through 20th-century privacy frameworks only. — connects to: Instrumentarianism is a market project unlike totalitarianism’s political project. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1142; Instrumentarian power aims at total certainty through a market project — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1699; Instrumentarian power differs fundamentally from twentieth-century totalitarianism — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1121 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Instrumentarian power differs fundamentally from twentieth-century totalitarianism #expands (0.90) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1121
• The surveillance capitalist project extends to society itself as an object of certainty #expands (0.90) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1699
• Totalitarian power operates independently of material interest and profit motives #contradicts (0.85) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 938